Not far from Curitiba, in the town of Araucária, the bus tour Caminhos de Guajuvira takes you to a journey through Polish culture, preserved by local descendants. Mixing rural and urban landscapes, the 45 km trip goes through several attractions. This trip offers tourists the opportunity to have contact with the country life and cultural diversity of the families descended from immigrants, mainly from Poland.

During the tour, visitors can take pictures and get to know twelve sights of the town´s rural area, an adventure unlike those offered by urban life. The stops of the bus tour include rural properties where there are different activities: cultivation of flowers, sale of traditional products – such as liquors, wines, sweets and cheeses – and, in November, the famous peach picking period. One of the farms offers a typical “Café Colonial”, rural meal that consists of abundant food such as assorted breads, butter, cheese, jams, cakes, ham, sausage, milk, coffee, hot chocolate, wine, biscuits, among others products, most of them handmade.

The Senhor Bom Jesus church is also visited, a construction inaugurated in 1972 and built by local residents, located at the historical center of Guajuvira, where provincial landscape contrasts with nature. Home to ancient buildings, welcoming community and a lot of history, it is outlined by the Iguaçu River and divided by railroad tracks that link the southeast region to the north of Paraná.

The historical center also houses the Horto Florestal (greenhouse market), an area for the production of seedlings of various species. Created in 1979 by the Municipality of Araucaria, it provides native species for the population and for reforestation. There, the visitor can choose two seedlings to take home, from options of native trees, fruit trees and flowers. You can also see the tree that gave name to the tourism line: the Guajuvira, which has strong wood, once used by Indians for making bows and arrows.

Another stop is Parque Cachoeira where the buildings resemble typical architecture of Polish immigration, such as the Casa do Artesanato (Handcraft House), built in 1887 and today home to a store of handmade products made by the families from Araucária. A barn and a windmill were transformed into classrooms for craft courses open to the community.

If you are interested on visiting Caminhos do Guajuvira Tourism Line, contact the CIT (Touristic Information Center of Araucária – (41) 3901-5214 – cit@araucaria.pr.gov.br) during the week and book your tour, which runs every Saturday at 1:30 pm. The ticket costs R$ 5,00 and if you would like to have the Café Colonial, it costs up to R$20,00. The bus leaves from the CIT, located at Rua Dr. Victor do Amaral, 352, Centro, Araucária. The CIT is open from Monday to Saturday – 8am-6pm – and on Sundays and Holidays from 10am to 5pm.