Romantic trip through Bento Gonçalves, Gramado and Cambará do Sul, stopping quickly in Porto Alegre!

Arriving in POA – 04/18/2014

We arrived in Porto Alegre in the early hours of Thursday to Friday and went straight to the hotel. InterCity, which is next to the airport, and has a great structure, with very modern and cozy rooms. The ideal would be to arrive early to enjoy the city, but this was the best mile ticket available…

Day 1 – Saturday (19/04/2014)

We had a very complete breakfast and went to pick up the car at the GMC rental company, right next to the airport. This was the cheapest rental company according to the website. CarRental and the service was excellent.

We hit the road towards Bento Goncalves and after 2 hours of smooth asphalt and pleasant scenery, we arrived at our friends' house. The city is delightful and the people are very polite, very different from some places in Brazil, but very similar to Europe.

We went looking for a restaurant because we were hungry, but the 2 that were recommended (Casa Valduga and Mamma Gema) were full, with a waiting line of at least 1 hour. We ended up going to a very small bistro in the winery. Vallontano, which didn't have any lines. The food and wine were delicious and the price was very fair.

We left the bistro and went to see the wineries in Valley of the Vineyards. We went to the winery first. Marco Luigi, which is one of our hosts' favorites. The house was lovely and the staff were very friendly. We did the tour through the facilities and then tasting some wines and sparkling wines, very good by the way. For those who don't know, the owner of this winery is the brother of the owner of Valduga House (most famous winery) and is also the brother of the owner of Don Giovanni. The 3 wineries are on the same street and are beautiful, each with its own specific details, right…

We left the Marco Luigi winery and went to the neighboring Casa Valduga. We didn't even have time to do the tour We didn't even go to the tasting, because it was crowded, but we walked around there and then went to the shop, where we tasted some wines before choosing which ones to take home.

We then went to the hotel Wine Spa, as our friends said it was worth a visit – and it really is! The hotel is beautiful, with cozy decor and a beautiful view of several wineries. We stopped at the bar for a coffee and enjoyed the fireplace, listening to live instrumental music. Luckily, there was an event of that kind going on. happy hour and they served us wonderful sparkling wines. I felt rich for a few minutes. 🙂

 We went home and had pizza for dinner with our friends and it was deliciously cold.

Day 2 – Sunday (20/04/2014)

After breakfast, we said goodbye to them (who were going to travel) and went to the region known as Stone Path, where there are other famous wineries as well. We went first to Geisse Cave, because Celo and his family love the sparkling wine there, and I found the place beautiful and incredibly peaceful, as it is quite far from everything. It was definitely worth the visit! We discovered that the owner is Chilean, has always worked in this industry, arrived there, studied the soil, planted the best grapes for the region according to him and voila, he made one of the best sparkling wines in the country (perhaps the best!).

We did the tour We visited the winery and then had a wonderful tasting of their sparkling wines and wines. The sparkling wine we liked the most was the sugar-free one, surprisingly enough. It was incredibly smooth. We had a great time at the shop, buying the sparkling wines made there and the wines produced in different places (mostly Chile). We left there happy with the visit, because we also met a dear friend, and we spent some time walking around the region. We stopped at the winery/guesthouse Fornasier just to enjoy the viewpoint, look:

Then we pass by Tomato House, which is a very nice place, with a strong Italian tradition and many delicious delicacies. We tried several things and ended up buying a delicious sauce. From there, we went to Sheep House, but as it was crowded and the time to feed them was only in 2 hours, we only got to know the store.

We tried to have lunch at the same restaurants we had tried the day before, but they were all full again. It's a bummer to travel during a holiday, right? We decided to go eat at the Wine Spa, even though we thought dinner would be more romantic. We got there and, to our surprise, there was no waiting line. The lunch plan was All you can eat, including breakfast food. At first we thought it was cool, but then we felt like something was missing… After lunch, we relaxed outside the hotel, enjoying the view and the sunset.

We left there in search of our hotel (Villa Dei Fiori), but Google Maps got in the way and we took a bizarre detour. We had to call the hotel and after some instructions, we got there. I thought the inn would be small, family-run and that the rooms were cozy, but we came across a newly built building with rooms without any charm.

Day 3 – Monday (04/21/2014)

We had a reasonable breakfast and hit the road to Southern Cambara. We passed through Caxias do Sul, which is bigger than Bento, but still very pleasant. The road is great and there were almost no cars going in the same direction, but on the other hand, a lot of people were returning from the holiday. After 2 hours, we arrived in a small and cold city, guys!

We stopped at a snack bar to buy sandwiches (yes, this was our lunch) and then ran to the canyon Itaimbezinho. Most people I know only know POA, Gramado and Canela in RS, but thanks to my father, I had the pleasure of visiting this beautiful place in 2006 and now with Celo, I thought it would be worth going back. We took a 20km road, most of it dirt, and after almost 1 hour, we arrived at our destination. We asked about the visibility to see if it was worth doing the trails to the canyon and luckily it was OK. It was almost 3pm and because of the time, we decided to do the longest trail in the Elbow, which leads to the viewpoints that give visibility of 70% of the canyon. They say it takes 1h30 to go and 1h to come back, but we saw that this pace is quite slow, because it is only 6km in total, without ups and downs.

Since the park closed at 5pm and we wanted to do the trail Vertex, which is where you can see the remaining 30% of the canyon, we returned relatively quickly (1h30 round trip). When we arrived at the base, we asked about the visibility and the guy said there was none. Luckily, Celo insisted that we go and it was great, because we were able to see the Véu de Noiva waterfall, which is stunningly beautiful. This trail took about 30 minutes in total.

After that we went straight to our guesthouse, which was about 3km from the city center. After a long dirt road, we arrived at Friends Corner. The inn is a farm with a few cabins (5, at the time we were there), but there are more rooms available in the main house. We were very well looked after by the owner, who is a lovely person, and we had the joy of watching him feed the sheep. The farm is the size of 300 football stadiums (!!!!) and according to him, the animals are free to roam around this area. The only problem is that the sheep need to return close to the main house, because if they stay far away, they can be attacked by pumas. The cows and horses can be free the whole time, because they are not targets of them. To make them return, Mr. Edson gives them a symbolic food and they return from wherever they are.

We got ready and went looking for a place to have dinner in the city, not expecting much, but to our surprise, we found a delicious place called Path. It's a small bistro with a maximum of 10 tables, good music, cozy decor, fair service and delicious food. Perfect choice for our night. <3

Day 4 – Tuesday (04/22/2014)

We had a very home-made breakfast and left the hotel wanting more. He talked about horse riding at the farm, but since the plan was to go to Canyon Ffortune (20km away) and then go straight to Lawn, we thought it would be rushed. We headed to the canyon, but in the middle of the road, a bizarre fog started and we thought it best to go back.

We came back and guess where we went? To our guesthouse! We took a horseback ride around the farm and it was amazing! 1/3 of the farm is pasture, 1/3 is a tree plantation for furniture and 1/3 is native forest. The tour lasted more than 1 hour and was great, because we talked about everything possible. I really wanted to have a farm…

After there, we went to the restaurant Coastal Warehouse, which was recommended by a person on the canyon trail the day before and we thought it was all very good! R$25 per person, all you can eat, in a very gaucho environment. It was worth it!

We hit the road towards Lawn and after 2 hours, there we were. We went there and Cinnamon in 2013 for the wedding of our friends from Bento, so we already had an idea of what we were going to see. A pleasant, romantic, touristy, structured city, very different from Cambará do Sul…lol. We went straight to our hotel, the I want I want, which is on the road between Gramado and Canela and is simply delicious! When choosing the restaurant for the night, I chose to use the TripAdvisor ranking. We wanted a romantic fondue restaurant, preferably not too crowded. We chose the 2nd restaurant on the ranking of the time, the Platanos Castle and we loved everything. It was empty, as we wanted, there was great live music, excellent service, cute decor and DELICIOUS food. We started with the cheese fondue and I almost stopped there because it was so good… I even asked what was in it, but I don’t remember the answer… lol. Then we had the meat fondue on a stone, which we hadn’t heard of (I only knew the one where you dip the meat in hot oil). It’s delicious and much healthier, right? You could have had as many times as you wanted and to top it off, they served about 14 sauces, all delicious. We finished with a perfect chocolate fondue, with lots of fresh fruit. To my delight, the banana and strawberry were also just what I wanted…

We drove back to the hotel, terrified of the Dry Law. Luckily, we didn't see any. For those who want to visit this restaurant, take advantage of the transfer free. We only found out at the time…

Day 5 – Wednesday (04/23/2014)

We had a delicious breakfast at the hotel and went for a walk around the city. We walked around the covered street area and after buying souvenirs, we stopped for soup at the bistro. Josephine. It was quite cold and it started to rain too, so the soups went down really well…

We got off at Lago Negro, but it was very foggy, so it wasn't really worth it. We thought about going to Mini Mundo too, but the rain put us off.

We left Gramado while it was still daylight and went to POA. Once there, we went to the beer bar. Beer Market, recommended by friends, and we found it pretty cool, with lots of imported beers and delicious food. The service wasn't all that great, but that's life, right?

We returned the car to the rental company and went to our hotel, Expressinho, with the transfer that left the airport. What a trashy place, guys… I saw on booking that the review was bad, but I thought I would give it a chance. NEVER AGAIN! They gave us a room facing the street, super noisy, and the room was terrible. Unfortunately, I can't say that we ended our trip with a flourish.