Northeast Brazil's beach city — lobster by the kilo, sun, and forró music
Fortaleza is the capital of Ceará, one of Brazil's most culturally distinct states — a city of long sandy beaches, constant 30°C sunshine, and a food scene built on fresh lobster, crab, shrimp, and spiced carne de sol (sun-dried beef) at an eighth of the price of the south. The Mercado Central is a five-story labyrinth of cachaça, hammocks, and Northeastern craft; the beach suburb of Meireles has a 6km waterfront promenade. Forró — the accordion-driven dance music of the Northeast — was born in Ceará.
Fortaleza grew from a Portuguese fort built in 1649 to control the coast against Dutch incursion. The city became the capital of Ceará in 1726 and developed as a cotton-export port. The 1877–79 Great Drought (Grande Seca) killed half the population of Ceará and created mass migration to Fortaleza and the Amazon — that migration shaped the city's culture and its tradition of absorbing the rural interior's food, music, and artisanship.