Bay of Kings

Fasano Angra dos Reis (Angra dos Reis)

GETAWAYS • Brazil

On my second trip to Rio de Janeiro, meeting a best friend who recently moved to Brazil, we decided to venture to the Costa Verde. Roughly four hours from Rio by car, it’s a region known for lush, verdant mountain peaks and tranquil deep blue waters dotted by hundreds of islands.

We honed in on Angra dos Reis — a chic resort town ideal for boating and popular amongst city dwellers from Rio and São Paulo — and chose Fasano Angra dos Reis as our home base. Part of a private seaside community including a marina, tennis courts, and multiple restaurants, Fasano is a tropical modernist hotel with a low-rise, horizontal layout that makes sublime use of minimalist concrete and gleaming hardwood, all set against a lush green backdrop of rolling hills. The grounds are anchored by a courtyard corridor known as “the boulevard,” where various high-end boutiques featuring Brazilian resortwear designers sit alongside wine and sundries shops.

We visited in the fall (shoulder season, when there’s a higher chance of afternoon showers), as the resort was running a promotion that included breakfast and dinner. With a handful of restaurants across the property, a different one hosted dinner each night, with similar menus highlighting Italian cuisine in a three-course prix-fixe fashion. Breakfast is served in an indoor-outdoor dining room with a buffet of tropical fruit and Brazilian pastries, with eggs and other entrees made to order also available. The semi-inclusive package made the whole stay feel luxurious and unfussy.

We planned a day on the water, chartering a boat and captain who picked us up at the resort’s onsite marina to explore the Bay of Kings, including lunch at a restaurant on an island that prepared an exquisite moqueca fish stew cooked in banana leaf over an open flame. As our boat day came to an end, dark clouds rolled in and we scrambled back to the resort in the rain to take shelter in the subterranean spa, where we swam lazily in a long heated pool, floated in bubbling hydrotherapy pools, and warmed our bones in the steam room and sauna. Pure heaven.

Rooms are an extension of the resort’s design with hardwood floors that extend to oversized balconies with views of the bay or mountains. Rich leather, handwoven textiles, and stone add to the tranquil effect. With the residential setting and spacious grounds, it was fun to fantasize that we simply lived in Angra now. The boulevard was our new Main Street, where we’d overhaul our wardrobes with pure resortwear and subsist on Champagne from the wine shop. In the evenings, we’d descend upon whatever restaurant was hosting dinner, night after night. –Shayne Benowitz

→ Fasano Angra dos Reis (Angra dos Reis) • winter rates from $674.