Skip to content
Mixroutes
Olinda
Municipality in Pernambuco, Brazil

Olinda

Olinda is a historic city in Pernambuco, Brazil, in the Northeast Region.

Plan a trip to Olinda→From João Pessoa

It is located on the country's northeastern Atlantic Ocean coast, in the Metropolitan Region of Recife, the state capital. It has a population of 349,976 people, covers 41.681 square kilometres (16.093 mi2), and has a population density of 9,437 inhabitants per square kilometre (24,440/sq mi). It is noted as one of the best-preserved colonial cities in Brazil and has been inhabited since 1535.

Get in

Getting to Olinda

The nearest airport is Recife's Guararapes Airport'. A taxi to/from the airport will cost some R$ 40. Olinda is approximately 7 km north of the center of Recife, with plenty of local buses running in between. The main bus stop in Olinda is Praça do Carmo, which is easy to miss. Taxis from the center of Recife to Olinda take about 20 minutes.

See

Worth seeing

Olinda's beautiful scenery and architecture make for a pleasant sightseeing all around. Colonial architecture, belvederes and the blue sea paint a relaxed environment that is second to none among Brazilian traditional cities.

  1. 01
    Olinda Cathedral
Do

Things to do

Outside of Carnaval season, Olinda boasts a lively culture, featuring mostly forró and maracatú in the clubs and town squares, as well as year-round, Saturday night serenades. Angola Mae Capoeira School, Rua Ilma Cunha 243. Quite different from those of Rio and Salvador this is a lively street party, where blocos parade accompanied by frevo and maracatu music.

Eat

Where to eat

Sargação, near Praça do Carmo near the beachfront, serves sandwiches and burgers until the late night hours. Alto da Sé hosts a variety of food vendors, with a lively environment in the early evening. Mourisco, Praça João Alfredo, offers self service at a reasonable price. Oficina do Sabor, Rua do Amparo 335,. Tue-Sat 12:00-16:00, 18:00-00:00, Sun 17:00-00:00.

How locals move

Getting around Olinda the local way

  • Get inFrom there you can take an intercity bus or shared ride with Blablacar to Recife.
  • Get inHourly from João Pessoa From Maceió from R$80 (April 2021) Especially from Maceió and Natal you can get a better price from the frequent shared rides.

From Wikivoyage: Recife, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see file page), Wikimedia Commons.