Espirito Santo Travel Video Guide

Espirito Santo Travel Itinerary

• Maps and flag of Brazil
• Espirito Santo travel photos
• Espirito Santo travel forum
• Flights to Espirito Santo
• Hotels in Espirito Santo
• Hostels in Espirito Santo
• Buy the guide book!

Espirito Santo , a compact combination of mountains and beaches, is one of the smallest states in Brazil (with a population of only 2.6 million), but as Minas Gerais' main outlet to the sea it is strategically very important. More iron ore is exported through its capital, Vitoria , than any other port in the world. Not surprisingly the preponderance of docks, rail yards and smelters limits the city's tourist potential, despite a fine natural location. To a mineiro, Espirito Santo means only one thing: beaches . The coastline is basically one long beach, some 400km in length and, during weekends and holiday seasons, people flock to take the waters, tending to concentrate on the stretch immediately south of Vitoria, especially the large resort town of Guarapari . The best beaches, however, lie on the strip of coastline 50km south of Guarapari.

The hinterland of Vitoria, far less visited, is exceptionally beautiful, a spectacular mix of lush forest, river valleys, mountains and granite hills. It's here that the state's real pleasures lie. The soils of this central belt are fertile, and since the latter part of the nineteenth century the area has been colonized by successive waves of Italians, Poles and Germans. Their descendants live in hillside homesteads and a number of small, very attractive country towns which combine a European feel and look with a thoroughly tropical landscape. If it weren't for the heat and the hummingbirds darting around, you might imagine yourself somewhere in Switzerland. The best way to view the region is to make the round of these towns: Santa Teresa , Santa Leopoldina , Santa Maria , Domingos Martins and Venda Nova - the last near the remarkable sheer granite face of Pedra Azul , one of the least-known but most spectacular sights in the country. All are easy to get to from

Vitoria, not more than a couple of hours over good roads, with frequent buses. Around the towns, the lack of mineral deposits and the sheer logistical difficulties in penetrating such a hilly area have preserved huge chunks of the Mata Atlantica , the lush semi-deciduous forest that once covered all the coastal parts of southern Brazil. Credit should also go to the local Indians, notably the Botocudo, whose dedicated resistance pinned the Portuguese down throughout the colonial period.

Your Tips For Espirito Santo

• Amazon Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  The Amazon is a vast forest - the largest on the planet - and a giant river system. - Brazil
  

• Goias and Tocantins Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  Almost 1000km from Rio and located in the barren sertao of the Goias highlands - very much in rural, peasant Brazil - Brasilia is the largest and most interesting of the world's "planned cities". - Brazil
  

• Mato Grosso region Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  Very Brazilian, in both its vastness and its frontier culture, the Mato Grosso region is essentially an enormous plain rippled by a handful of small mountain ranges. - Brazil
  

• Northeast Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  The Northeast ( nordeste) of Brazil covers an immense area and features a variety of climates and scenery, from the dense equatorial forests of western Maranhao, only 200km from the mouth of the Amazon, to the parched interior of Bahia, some 2000km to the south. - Brazil
  

• Minas Gerais Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  The French geologist Gorceix summed up Minas Gerais 150 years ago, when he wrote that the state had "a breast of iron and a heart of gold". - Brazil
  

• Rio Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  The citizens of the ten-million-strong city of Rio de Janeiro call it the Cidade Marvilhosa - and there can't be much argument about that. - Brazil
  

• South Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  The states forming the South of Brazil - Parana , Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul - are generally considered to be the most developed part of the country. - Brazil
  

• Espirito Santo Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  Espirito Santo , a compact combination of mountains and beaches, is one of the smallest states in Brazil (with a population of only 2. - Brazil
  

• Sao Paulo Brazil Travel Videos
  Brazil Travel Itinerary
  The citizens of the Sao Paulo state , Paulistas, never tire of saying that their state is Brazil's economic powerhouse, and they produce a mountain of statistics to sustain the boast. - Brazil