Olinda: Where to Stay and How to Get There

Olinda has an irregular layout, reminiscent of medieval Portuguese cities, with buildings adapted to the terrain’s curves, featuring stone and wood balconies, continuous facades, and large backyards. Historic monuments stand out amidst the tropical vegetation that survives within the urban fabric. The Baroque buildings amidst this vegetation display a balance of nuclei and forms, giving us a sense of the bucolic colonial Olinda.

The historic streets of Olinda, Pernambuco, Brazil, with their cobblestones and buildings dating back to the 17th century, when Brazil was a Portuguese colony

If Recife was its port, today it is its airport. For tourists arriving at Guararapes Airport, a drive of just over half an hour, crossing the modern capital of Pernambuco, is enough to transport them to their hotel in small Olinda.

And the accommodation options here are interesting. Due to the city’s small size, the hotel offerings are limited, but intriguing. Two beautiful inns shine in the historic center, in meticulously preserved colonial mansions that hark back to the 18th century. Several other small inns and a few hotels are scattered throughout downtown Olinda, in more modern buildings.