Petrópolis
"Petrópolis is what an emperor builds when even he can't stand Rio in February."
The mountain city an emperor built to escape Rio's summer heat, complete with palace, cathedral, and a climate that still feels like relief.
Dom Pedro II had, by most accounts, excellent reasons for wanting out of Rio each summer, and Petrópolis was his solution — a purpose-built imperial retreat in the mountains north of the city, roughly 900 metres higher and noticeably cooler, founded in 1843 and developed with a precision that still shows in the city’s layout today. I drove up from Rio on a stifling January afternoon, and the temperature drop as the road climbed into the Serra dos Órgãos was so distinct I actually rolled the window down to check it wasn’t the air conditioning.
The Museu Imperial, housed in the actual palace Dom Pedro II used as his summer residence, is the obvious centrepiece — a low, elegant, pale-blue building set in manicured gardens, holding the Brazilian imperial crown jewels (visitors are handed cloth slippers to glide across the polished wood floors, a detail that somehow makes the whole visit feel more ceremonial). Walking through rooms furnished exactly as the imperial family left them, it is easy to forget Brazil became a republic well over a century ago; the museum keeps the monarchy peculiarly present.
The Catedral São Pedro de Alcântara, a neo-Gothic cathedral with spires visible from most of the city centre, holds the tombs of Dom Pedro II and Empress Teresa Cristina — a genuinely moving stop if you have any interest in the history, and an architecturally striking one even if you don’t. Nearby, the Casa de Santos Dumont, the eccentric little chalet built by the aviation pioneer, is worth the short walk for its deliberately odd design choices, including a shower rigged to double as a wake-up alarm.
Petrópolis’s other identity is as a beer town — the German and Swiss immigrants who settled the region in the nineteenth century brought brewing traditions that persist today, and Bohemia, Brazil’s oldest beer brand, was founded here in 1853. I spent an unplanned two hours at a small brewery near the centre, working through a flight of the local styles with a bartender who clearly relished explaining the town’s brewing history to anyone who’d listen.
The city rewards an unhurried day trip more than an overnight — Rio is close enough (about ninety minutes by car or bus) that most visitors come and go in a single day, though staying over lets you enjoy the cooler evening air the imperial family clearly valued as much as anything else here.
When to go: Year-round, but especially appealing in Rio’s hot summer months (December to March) when the altitude difference is most welcome. June brings the Bauernfest, a German-inspired beer festival that leans hard into the city’s brewing heritage.