So excited when we woke up and found we were just pulling into Recife, the capital of the North/Northeast province of Brazil and one of the country's largest cities. Our first time in South America. When we came out on deck, even at 0730, the sky was blue and the heat was already intense. The waterside area looked a little like Miami with a modern skyscraper city but we knew there were picturesque parts and much to see. We took the shuttle bus from the ship into town admiring the sights along the way. Recife is sometimes described as the Venice of Brazil and there are a lot of waterways with lovely old 15/16th century buildings along the banks built by Dutch, French and of course Portugese families back in colonial times.

The shuttle bus dropped us at the Casa Cultura which is a seventeenth century prison, decommissioned in 1973 and now a shopping/arts centre. There was also free wifi - which we needed because we had business to do online for both girls as well as ourselves. For about 10 minutes it was brilliant and then everyone else caught on and signed in and that was that…… so we decided to try again later.

Got a taxi to the old colonial town of Olinda which was founded in the mid 1500s and became a prosperous sugar cane trading city. It is now absorbed by Recife and about 5 miles from the city centre. It took a bit of bartering with a few drivers but we finally got the trip for 15 USD which was about what it should be. Olinda is a UNESCO World Heritage site to preserve the very many colonial age buildings and churches there. It's very, very colourful - the houses are mostly painted in bright colours, just a photographer's delight.

We wandered around vaguely following a walking route and visited various churches and the Cathedral, looked in some of the art shops. Lots of funky stuff, particularly pottery. Took lots of pictures which I will upload when I find an internet connection that is up to it. Anyway, just loved Olinda. It was not crowded and it felt pretty secure.

The heat was absolutely intense as the day went on, reaching 37C by early afternoon. I was slavered in sunscreen but I could feel the back of my neck burning and frankly we were both absolutely dripping with sweat! Yuk. We'd seen a lot of Olinda so we decided to go back to Recife and explore the Casa Cultura before getting back on the ship.

It is the most unusual shopping centre ever! All the old cells over three floors are now little shops but it was clearly a prison. You can see the different galleries, the wings are still called North, South, East and West and the entrance to each wing is still barred by massive iron doors. Interesting shopping but it has to be pretty amazing to get me to buy handicrafts these days; there's very little room in our house for "stuff".

Got back to the ship late afternoon and more or less fell into the pool. A mystery how it didn't start sizzling and steaming as I got in. So lovely to cool off….

As sailaway time rolled around at 5 we moved to the stern of the ship to join in a P&O tradition which is the Great British Sailaway. The entertainment team lead the passengers in a selection of British songs and much flag waving. Sounds horrific but actually somehow it's a lot of fun in a music hall sort of way…. The Australians were all enjoying it anyway, waving both Australian and British flags. There were two cruise ships in with us: The MSC Artonia which was until very recently the P&O Artemis and the Costa Delizioso. We were backed up to the Artonia and all their passengers also came up on deck and watched and waved, then finally as our ship pulled away, escorted by the pilot boat and the tugs, both ships exchanged a series of horn hoots with Aurora by way of salute.

Lovely day. Loved Recife. Bodes well for Rio in 3 days time.