This mini dash of Bavaria all started in the middle of 1850, when a certain Dr Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau made his way through the subtropical hills and verdant valleys of the Itajaí-Açu River basin in southern Brazil. No doubt it was the undulating topography clad in dense woods that made him settle, doing well to mimic the Black Forest of his native Germany. And boy did Blumenau try to keep the reminders coming, as his sixteen fellow colonisers moved to construct the half-timbered facades and germanic buildings such as the famous Moelmann and the City Hall that still line the wide streets of the city today. Blumenau tour guides highly recommend visiting when the city celebrates the Oktoberfest, which now hails in as the second largest remake of the event anywhere outside of Munich. At the picturesque Vila Germanica, beer flows and lederhosen are donned; while Blumenau’s modern day residents stir in just a dash of that Latin flair, with the occasional gaucho steak spotted between the bratwursts and goulash soups.