Today your MSC ship will be docking in Latin America’s largest port, through which passes a large proportion of the world’s coffee, sugar and oranges.
The city stands partly on
São Vicente island, its docking facilities and old town facing landwards, with ships approaching by a narrow, but deep, channel. Its compact centre retains a certain charm that’s massively popular with local tourists, and there is a good deal of historical and maritime interest around the city. On an MSC South America
cruise excursion to the city centre you’ll find the ruins of some of Santos’s most distinguished buildings along
Rua do Comércio.
Although sometimes only the facades remain, some of the nineteenth-century former merchants’ houses that line the street are gradually being restored, the elaborate tiling and wrought-iron balconies offering a hint of the old town’s lost grandeur. MSC
South America cruises also offer excursions to the local
Santos Futebol Clube. It’s best known as the club for which the great
Pelé played for most of his professional life (from 1956 to 1974); their stadium, the
Vila Belmiro, is open to the public when there’s no game on.
In addition to honouring Pelé at the club’s small museum, you can take an hour-long guided tour including the players’ bar and dressing rooms. Santos’s
beaches are across town from Centro on the south side of the island. The beaches are huge, stretching around the Atlantic-facing Baía de Santos, and popular in summer.
