PRAIA DA CONCHA

There are only a few beaches in Brazil that have the kind of large yet charming beach kiosks that you find here on Praia da Concha. Although they line the inside of the beach with almost no breaks between them, the kiosks (which they call cabanas) have a special, inviting atmosphere about them. This may be because each one is designed and constructed in a unique way, either out of wood or with some tropical motif or other. Although most are two-stories tall, they generally have an open-air construction with no cement floor (just sand), which means that they don’t block access to (or view of) the beach from the sandy road behind them but allow people to walk right through them onto the sand in front. These are small touches that have made a huge difference in retaining the charm of Itacaré (something more beaches in Brazil ought to do). The two best cabanas for good lunch menus are the Cabana do Amigão and Ximbica. Because of these cabanas, Praia da Concha is easily the most popular and crowded beach in Itacaré. In peak season, this one-kilometer stretch of beach can get rather packed with visitors. The ocean here is a gray-brown color and not particularly transparent or beautiful. Still, the water is warm and the sand is soft and pink. In the afternoon, you can watch the sunset over the water and catch groups performing Capoeira on the sand.

Besides the sandy road that runs behind the cabanas all along Praia da Concha, there is another road inland that parallels the beach and is full of pousadas. At about the middle of the beach, there is a road that goes straight back and off to the other beaches in the south. This passes the Mar e Mel Restaurante (one of the town’s key night spots), an area with numerous new pousadas, and then meets up with Caminho das Praias (the main village road), which continues all the way to the beaches.