The seafront nobody is allowed to block

Every beach city promises a sunset. João Pessoa promises the opposite, and it is the harder promise to keep: here the sun arrives first. The city sits at the eastern edge of the continent, and dawn reaches this strip of sand before anywhere else in the Americas.

The law that gave the sand its sun back

What surprises visitors is not the sea but the sky. The João Pessoa seafront carries a height restriction on beachfront building, written so that the shadow of the towers does not fall across the beach in late afternoon. It is a rare piece of planning, taken against the immediate interest of whoever builds, and you feel it physically: at five in the afternoon there is still light on the sand rather than a wall of shade.

A city is defined less by what it builds than by what it decides not to build.

Where the continent ends

Ponta do Seixas is the easternmost point of the Americas. Above it, on the cliff, the Cabo Branco lighthouse marks the end of the continent with the restraint of something that needs to announce nothing. Go early, while the lookout is still empty and the light comes in low and raking, from outside the map.

The whole curve, on foot

From Cabo Branco to Bessa, by way of Tambaú and Manaíra, the seafront can be walked end to end along the promenade. Kilometres of continuous walking, with kiosks, coconut palms and a cycle path. Halfway along, the Estação Cabo Branco — an Oscar Niemeyer building opened in 2008 — sets a white curve on the cliff, facing the same sea.

• Start at Ponta do Seixas before seven and come down towards Tambaú
• The Estação Cabo Branco is open to visitors and looks out from the cliff
• Sunset is not over the sea: it is on the Jacaré river, twenty minutes from the centre
• The Mata do Buraquinho, an urban Atlantic forest reserve, lies just behind the shore

This is why breakfast starts early at GOA Essence Hai. It is not hotel discipline: it is the only way not to miss the part of the day that belongs to this city.