In the area of the European Valley several towns have a high population of Germans. We decided to visit the smaller town, Pomerode, instead of the bigger town Blumenau. We took the decision after looking at pictures on Google, because we could not spend time in both towns. Pomerode was founded in 1861 by Pomeranian Germans, and they have German as their second language in school.
As we got closer we already saw the signs of the German influence at the road construction – the VW kombi
Pomerode is known to be the most German town in Brazil, and now we know why… it doesn’t get more German than this!
But it doesn’t stop here… it gets better! Every year they celebrate “Oktoberfest” in Blumenau, it is the second largest Oktoberfest in the world after the original festival in Munich, Germany. The Oktoberfest in Blumenau are attracting hundred of thousands of visitor, this has generated a very positive impact on the tourist industry in the much smaller Pomerode. But since it is May we stopped at the local brewery Schornstein, where you can drink beer at the “Schornstein kneipe”. Kneipe is the German world for pub/bar 
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The area is also known for its chocolate, so we visited the Nugali chocolate factory it is the best chocolate we have had for the last 6 months! Maybe chocolate itself is not German, but Nugali produces the German “Katzenzungen” – that is so German. We just love this chocolate 
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Walking through town we noticed German names… “Schroeder” or in German “Schröder”
More German names at the porcelains factory in town “Schmidt”
The small town is easy to explore on foot, and we also stopped at several bakeries until we found the right one, where we wanted to stop for a snack. Even the cookies look German.
Or how about matching cookies for your VW beetle
We didn’t go for the traditional German “Kuchen”, but went for the cakes that we thought looked the best, and we do like chocolate. Before…
After…
We did find one thing, that for us is not German. Pomerode produce cheese, but cheese in metal tubes… that is NOT German at all. We had really hoped to find firm aged cheese, but we were not that lucky.
German Brazilians refers to Brazilian people of ethnic German ancestry or origin. Between 1824-1972 about 260,000 German settled in Brazil, and in the year 2000, about 12 million people in Brazil claimed to be of German descent. In Pomerode 90% of the population are Brazilians of German descent (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Brazilians). This also reflects in the religion, where 66% are Protestants and 31% are Catholics in Pomerode. In general Brazil is a Catholic country with 65% are Catholics and only 22% Protestants (the numbers are from 2010). So the churches also looks very European, and for us the churches have a lot of similarities with the churches we have in Denmark.
But at the same time everything here looks more exotic with palm, papaya and banana threes, but Esben couldn’t reach them
The natures and climate is just different here, so we really find Brazil very interesting
After our muddy adventure in the European Valley we ended up spending an extra night in Pomerode. So I got up with the sun the next morning and left Esben in the bed to get to Curitiba. It was just a beautiful morning, when we were heading out of the valley. See you in Curitiba 
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