Quatro Ilhas

At 1,016.56 metres of sand, Quatro Ilhas is the beach the oldest residents still call Praia de Fora. The official name comes from what you see across the water: Galé, Deserta, Arvoredo and Macuco, four ocean islands cut out along the horizon. The first three belong to the Arvoredo Marine Biological Reserve — the view from the balcony is federally protected land, and it will stay that way.

First-timers tend to assume Quatro Ilhas is only the surf beach. It has two sides, and they are very different. The right-hand headland holds the waves that made its name. On the left the sea is calm and shallow enough for snorkelling and stand-up paddle — and that is where the kiosks, the restaurants and most of the places to stay are concentrated.

The right-hand side is genuine open ocean: it takes south and south-east swell with force and works best on an offshore wind. This is competition territory, and on swell days it becomes a spectacle even if you only watch from the sand. As anywhere on an open coast, mind the lifeguards' flags and stay close in when the sea is big.

There is more here than the water. A short circular trail starts at the far right end, with wooden walkways over vegetated dunes, leading to the best viewpoints over the islands. On the seafront, Praça Mirante das Ilhas brings together a playground, an outdoor gym, a pergola and a lookout — neighbourhood infrastructure, not just beach infrastructure. And the sand still hosts the artisanal mullet fishery, a tradition that has held on there for generations.

Quatro Ilhas is one of the Bombinhas beaches certified under the Blue Flag programme, the international environmental-quality label it has held season after season. That comes with rules: no pets, no barbecues or fires, no speakers, and motorboats must stay more than 200 metres off the sand. It is the kind of restriction that annoys you for a weekend and pays off for decades — it is what keeps the water clean, the seafront quiet and the neighbourhood the way it is.