Bar Dos Arantes

A rather cool place, a short drive from Florianopolis, Brazil

There are two stories, and we have to admit we haven’t made enough research to find out which is true, maybe a bit of both. One story says that the origins of leaving little notes comes from the times when there was little chance for sailors to communicate directly, since they were spending most of their time at sea and it would have been quite a coincident of meeting friends. So they left messages in the ‘usual places’.
The second story was that people would pay for a small glass of caçacha by writing a little poem on a piece of paper. We do know that you can help yourself to a glass from a jar and it is true (which is nice) and we know that people are encouraged to write something on the paper provided at the tables. You might argue that by now this might be a bit of a tourist attraction, the bar certainly isn’t serving as messaging post for lonely sailors any more.

On the other hand, it’s located at the southern tip of the Santa Catarina Island, too far from the tourist hot spots in the north. So the truth might be somewhere in the middle. It’s a truly nice place to stop by for lunch, and it comes with a cool and authentic story… We did enjoy the food and we did leave a little doodle (we’re no poets after all)  and hopefully we’ll have another opportunity to stop by there again one day. Just in case somebody left us a note!