Búzios in Brazil

Búzios is the principal resort of choice for Carioca and Mineira upper middle classes searching for their idea of St Tropez sophistication. When it was discovered by Brigitte Bardot in 1964 it was little more than a collection of colonial fishermen's huts and a series of pristine beaches hidden beneath steep hills covered in maquis-like vegetation. Now there are strings of hotels behind all of those beaches and the huts have become lost within a designated tourist village of bars, bikini boutiques and restaurants, most of which are strung along the pretty little main street, Rua das Pedras. Bardot sits here too - cheesily immortalized in brass, and subsequently in tens of thousands of pictures taken by the troops of cruise line passengers who fill Búzios's streets in high season. St Tropez this is not, but it can be fun for twenty-somethings who are single and looking not to stay that way. The beaches are beautiful and there are a few romantic hotels with wonderful views.