fortaleza, ceara.

on Friday morning, we boarded a plane headed to our next destination:

FORTALEZA.

Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceara in the northeast & is the 5th largest city in Brazil.

On our first day exploring Fortaleza,

we went to the Ponte dos Ingleses to see the dolphins off the pier.

We were lucky to be able to see a few of them, even jumping out of the water!

After, we visited the Cathedral Metropolitana de Fortaleza.

This cathedral took 40 years to build, starting in 1938 & was inaugurated in 1978.

This church was amazing! We have visited several catholic churches since our time here, and this was unlike any of the ones we've seen. It was obviously much more modern since the other ones we saw were built around the 1600s.  Because it was a more modern church, it was not in the baroque style like all the other ones we've seen. It was much more simple inside. It reminded me much of the inside of a mormon temple which is so beautiful, yet simple. It had beige walls with white trims, marble flooring, and everything was very clean and taken care of. However, all throughout the inside were these gorgeous stain glass windows that were breath taking. Every window represented different saints, prophets, events, etc. So the church was kept more "simple" in order to not take away from the beauty of the stain glass windows. 

The outside of the cathedral appeared very Gothic like. 

These windows FILLED the cathedral. 

After visiting the Cathedral, we hopped across the street to visit the Mercado Central which was a 5 story market place! It was amazing, and we spent about an hour looking around and doing some shopping. Embroidery is very big here in Fortaleza, so we stalked up on some towels, placemats, table runners, etc.

After lunch, we visited the Dragao do Mar Cultural Center. There were various museums and exhibits open and we were able to walk through and see a lot of interesting things.  Since it is Luiz Gonzagas 100th birthday this year, a lot of the museums/exhibits have put him as a focus so this exhibit was based on his life living in the sertao.

This is what a typical "sertanejo"'s house looks like. Even when we visited the sertao, people still live like this today.