Fortaleza Audio Tours

Fortaleza is built on 25 kilometers of urban beach -- a coast that runs without interruption from the western port district through Praia de Iracema and Meireles to Prainha and beyond. The Dutch built Fort Schoonenborch here in 1649, which the Portuguese retook and renamed Fortaleza da Nossa Senhora de Assuncao -- and the city's name comes from that fort, which still stands containing a military museum in the heart of downtown. The jangadas, traditional wooden sailing rafts with triangular sails that originated with the Tupi people, still launch from Mucuripe beach for fishing before dawn.

The northeast produces forro music -- an accordion-driven dance genre that sounds like the landscape: rhythmic, insistent, joyful in a way that doesn't hide the hardship behind it.

The Theatro Jose de Alencar, an iron and glass theater completed in 1910 with structural components imported from Scotland, holds performances in a building that stands as a genuine architectural surprise at the edge of downtown. The Dragao do Mar Center of Art and Culture, a waterfront complex near Praia de Iracema, opened in 1999 and holds a contemporary art museum, a planetarium, and a cinema.