City Tour

Traditional City Tour

You will be taken to visit some typical neighborhoods in Manaus with a little stop at the Rio Negro Palace, where the local Mayor lives and where we can appreciate its architecture. Then, you will visit the Indian Museum, where we can see some of the traditions, objects, and costumes used by these people. After that, visit the Teatro Amazonas, the main tourist spot in the city.

Explore More About Manaus:

Manaus, on the banks of the Negro River in northwestern Brazil, is the capital of the vast state of Amazonas. It's a major departure point for the surrounding Amazon Rainforest. Just east of the city, the dark Negro River converges with the brown, muddy Solimões River resulting in a striking visual phenomenon called the “Meeting of the Waters.” The combined tributaries form the Amazon River.

Today, as the capital of Amazonas state and a busy free trade zone, it is the jumping-off point for exploring the Amazon and its headwaters. Its primary tourist attractions, in addition to its colonial buildings, are the many eco-tour options by boat and lodges in the nearby tropical rain forests.

An Italian Renaissance-style Opera House in Manaus:

The city's most famous building is the Italian Renaissance-style opera house that opened in 1896 and is now protected as a national monument. In an effort to make Manaus a great center of civilization, no expense was spared to create this cultural palace in the heart of the primeval forest.

Most of its materials were imported from Europe: the doorways are of Italian marble, the staircase is of English wrought iron, and many of its 198 chandeliers are of Murano glass from Venice; the rest were imported from France. The dome, completed at the beginning of the 20th century, is faced with 36,000 tiles imported from Germany. Even the native Brazilian woods used in the palace's decoration were sent to Europe to be carved and polished.

The curtain, which rises flat without being rolled or folded, shows the junction of the Rio Negro and the Solimões to form the Amazon.

Encontro das Aguas:

It would be unthinkable to travel to Manaus without seeing Encontro das Aguas, one of the world's natural wonders. This is the point, 20 kilometers southeast of the city, where the dark-colored water of the Rio Negro joins the light brown muddy water of the Rio Solimões to form the Amazon.

What makes this especially unusual is that the two rivers run together, but side-by-side for about six kilometers, they do so without mingling. You might see this from the air as you fly into the city, but boat trips into the mingling waters are among the most popular things to do in Manaus.

Anavilhanas Islands:

The Rio Negro, between Manaus and Novo Airão, is an archipelago of 400 islands and islets, with hundreds of lakes, watercourses, and igapós (flooded forests) extending for some 90 kilometers. The Anavilhanas Nature Reserve, an area of 350,000 hectares, offers a complete cross-section of the Amazonian ecosystem.

Parque Ecológico Janauari:

The 688-hectare Janauari Ecological Park, about 45 minutes by boat from Manaus, features a variety of ecosystems: solid land, várzeas (alluvial plains), and igapós (swampy woodland). Motorboats will take you through the park's intricate network of igarapés: narrow waterways surrounded by luxuriant vegetation that ranges from grasses to giant kapok trees.