Rio de Janeiro, more commonly known simply as Rio, was a city we'd been so looking forward to visiting since beginning our long trip to a good chunk of South America back in early September. Before doing any research, to me Rio meant the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, the signature Sugarloaf skyline and the troubled city that hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics. Over the next few posts, you'll see and learn about all those and many more sights of the fantastic city. We decided the best introduction for us would be to take the 'free' walking tour to get an understanding of the central part of the city and some of its sights.
We'd picked a perfect hotel this time as it was just minutes from the beach and also just a few blocks away from a metro stop which meant easy access to all over the vast city.
We couldn't help but be charmed by one of the first things we noticed in Rio: its mosaic sidewalks everywhere, some decorated more than others.
We reached the tour meeting stop a little early so walked nearby to view the stately Museu Nacional de Belas Artes that was established in 1937 and housed the most comprehensive collection of Brazilian art in the country.
Across the street was the magnificent Theatro Municipal built in 1905 in the style of the Paris Opera.
Sophia pointed out the headquarters of Brazil's oil company across the park had been voted one of the world's ten ugliest buildings when it was designed to resemble an oil platform. When it was completed in 1974, gardens were planted in the empty spaces which was unusual at the time because no one thought of incorporating gardens as part of the building design. Shades had to added to the building once people realized it was like working in an oven with all the glass!
Sophia stated that the Portuguese explorers allowed no universities, press or businesses in the colony until the early 1800s when the Portuguese royal family moved to the city. There are few colonial buildings left in Rio because they were torn down to allow the construction of French-style buildings as the mayor at the time had fallen in love with Paris.
Towering mirrors adorned the first floor of the cafe.
Sophia said the most traditional sweet in Rio was a brigadeiro made of condensed milk, chocolate and other yummy ingredients. She added if you're sad, you must eat a brigadeiro; if you're happy, you must eat a brigadeiro. How could I not! Brazilians love everything sweet so this place was great for Americans, except for the health-food conscious Californians, she joked. Even Queen Elizabeth II had been to the famous confectionary.
The upper gallery was brightened by a delightful Art Nouveau skylight.
As we reluctantly left the Confeitaria, Sophia mentioned we should consider ourselves 'lucky' as the temperature was normally 40-45 (104-113 for us northerners!) degrees and can even reach a sweltering 50 degrees (122 F) Celsius in the city. When it's that brutally hot, she said, she just wonders who's going to pass out first!
The tiny, but oh so pretty, Rua do Ouridor had the highest concentration of colonial buildings and was the first commercial street in the city. It would be a good street to come back to later if we wanted to shop or dine, according to Sophia.
What became the Imperial Palace on the square was extraordinarily plain as it had never been expected a royal family would come to Rio and the building was the best one available given the time constraints of the royals' arrival. Dom Joao fell in love with Brazil and declared Rio the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve.
November 15th, 1888 marked the day when slavery was finally abolished in Brazil, the last country in Latin America to do so.
On the other side of Parliament was the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Candelaria, one of the largest and wealthiest churches of imperial Brazil.
The Municipal Theater, which we'd briefly seen earlier before the tour, was a little over 100 years old, according to Sophia. A project of a former mayor, it was considered the most beautiful building of old Rio. Conductor Arturo Toscanini made his debut here and Maria Callas performed at the theater. The Bolshoi Ballet even has a branch here in Rio at the theater! Concerts are held monthly that cost just one Brazilian real equal to only a quarter, so they are available to everyone. However, locals refer to it disparagingly as the Golden Cage.
King Joao VI brought lots of works of art from Portugal with him and hired French artists to teach the locals; that was the forerunner of the National Museum of Fine Arts. The building below behind the scaffolding, also on Cinelandia Square, was the National Library. With over 60,000 books brought by the future king, it became the biggest library in Latin America and included a mammoth collection of 19th century paintings.
The square's sign reflected the very popular and talented Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, during the 1960s dictatorship.
The Odeon Theater was the only movie theater left over from the Cinelandia heyday.
Sophia cautioned us to be wary of standing near this cannonball tree in case its fruit should fall! The fruit, even when fresh, smell so rotten that even animals won't eat them! The tree is kept because it's pretty in springtime.
The arches, originally made of wood in the 1700s, are now made of concrete and mark the dividing line to the Lapa neighborhood.
A church I could far more easily wrap my head around was this pretty church on the corner that had exquisite tiles on one side.
For a donation, an artist would add a person's name to his globe painting. I wonder where mine landed up!
At the end of the narrow alley was a set of 215 steps covered with colorful mosaics by Chilean-born artist Jorge Selarón. After moving to Brazil and living near the steps, he thought they were so gray. Selarón, who always wore red shoes, decided to make up for the lack of red in the Brazilian flag by including as many red tiles as possible in the steps! The color red, he thought, brought joy to whatever it touched.
As his project garnered interest from tourists, he encouraged people to send him tiles when they returned home to help defray some of the costs. Sophia said 70 countries were represented. Selarón was like a woman, she said, who always wanted to make changes and said his project would never be finished as he would always make changes when he was sent new tiles.
Selarón's last image was reportedly of his pregnant girlfriend who died from pregnancy complications in 2013 when he was too drunk to help her as he died at the bottom of the steps. A sad story of a man who had spent the last two decades bringing the staircase to life.
Natalie: for you and Adam!
Toward the end of our last trip, we began discussing where we might travel to in 2018. Guess what one of the countries we discussed was AND we'll be going to beginning mid-August?! Stay tuned for info on our next travel adventure which is almost around the corner now as it's taken me so long to finish up the blog from our last trip.
A close image of Brazil's flag as the country was host of the 2010 World Cup, soccer's championship.
I had to include photos of tiles of my native Canada of course! Sophia remarked this part of the Lapa area had previously been a forgotten ghetto by the locals and the government but, with the advent of Selarón's Steps, the area is visited by people from all over the world and his work has contributed so much to Rio and the steps had become a historical landmark protected by the government. Though the tour ended there, we still wanted to visit some of the places we'd glimpsed on the way.
A much better view of the elevated arch that Sophia pointed out earlier. We watched, entranced, as a tram traveled over the upper level!
The Cathedral was intriguing, unusual and a church I would have hated to miss in Rio but it didn't give me the sense of peace and serenity so many other places of worship do.
Steven and I have been blessed to see an incredible number of stupendous churches on our travels but we both thought we'd not ever seen so much gold as there was in the chapel and attached museum. The detail and show of wealth was overwhelming, I could only mouth OMG, OMG time and time again.
I've never been lucky enough to visit Rome and Vatican City but I can't imagine anything there being more ... you fill in the blank.
The elaborate interior witnessed royal baptisms, weddings and funerals. Several kings were crowned here - the only place in the New World where this occurred. The royal family used to sit in the balcony boxes overlooking the altar. I hadn't known until our visit that churches had balcony boxes!
The last stops of the day was at the beautifully restored 1906 neoclassical building that housed Rio’s Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil aka CCBB.
In one of the city's most important cultural centers, we chanced upon a roving concert happening in the lobby
CCBB's temporary exhibition showcased inflatable 'sculptures' if that's the right word by Erwin Wurm! They brought smiles to our tired faces near the end of the day.
Next post: Visits to Rio's familiar sights: the Christ the Redeemer Statue, Sugarloaf Mountain and more.
Posted on June 2nd, 2018, from Grayton Beach State Park in Florida.
Sophia, our tour guide, mentioned Rio used to be known as the City of Illnesses as the hills and swamps dominated the area. The swamps were drained and many of the hills were destroyed in the late 1800s to make room for the expanding city. The city's name originated when Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Coelho entered a huge bay in January, 1502 and mistook it for a river.
Just behind us was St. Anthony Hill with the convent behind it. In the past, instead of paying for a husband or wife, people would put an image of St. Anthony in a bowl of water to find a spouse! To this day, July 14th or St. Anthony Day is celebrated as Love Day.
We were so glad when Sophia led us to the cool confines of Confeitaria Colombo as it was scorching hot that day and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We just wanted to hop from shady spot to another as quickly as we could! The bakery, in existence since 1874, was the place to be seen as members of high society, the president and intellectuals all came here. As the restaurant on the second floor was where important political decisions were made, a new table had to be found for each new president.
Another addition to my collection of interesting bathroom signs!
The tiny, but oh so pretty, Rua do Ouridor had the highest concentration of colonial buildings and was the first commercial street in the city. It would be a good street to come back to later if we wanted to shop or dine, according to Sophia.
We found a shady spot near Commerce Square where Sophia told us of Rio's history. In the early years of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to invade Portugal and other countries but he realized Britain was off limits because of its strong navy. Because Napoleon had never lost a battle to that point, the Portuguese regent and later King Dom Joao VI didn't want to fight him. To evade Napoleon, he and his entire court of 15,000 and many intellectuals set sail for Brazil to rule Portugal from Rio.
Slave trading occurred in these streets, according to Sophia. The three-story Portuguese-style buildings belonged to wealthy families who had stores on the first level and their homes above.
The archway, called the Arco de Teles, was once part of an old viaduct running between two buildings.
We popped in the nearby Church of Our Lady of Merchants, a Baroque gem built in the 1700s to accommodate the needs of the merchants and the proximity of the docks.
The heart of colonial Rio was Praca XV de Novembro or 15th November Square just steps from the docks. King Joao II was famous for his ugliness, being short, fat and having a facial deformity from Bourbon intermarriage! The statue of King Joao VI facing the docks in the center of the square showed him to be, however, skinnier than in real life. As Sophia joked, perhaps that was the first photoshop image of the period!
The Portuguese ladies of the day all had shaved heads so locals thought it was the latest fashion trend in Europe so they, likewise, shaved their heads. Thirty years later, the local women realized they'd been duped as the courtiers had shaved their heads because of lice on board the ship en route to Rio!
When the republic of Brazil was declared in 1822, the people didn't like to remember their colonial past and part of the palace was covered up with concrete. The palace was eventually re-opened as a cultural center in the 1980s.
A view from the Palace to Parliament next door:
Sophia said it was unusual no protests were taking place in front of the Parliament Building that was constructed in the 1860s.
The huge square in front of the Theater was Cinelandia and was the heart of the city in the 1950s. Sophia mentioned how just a month previously protesters had clogged all the streets starting from Parliament to City Hall, also on the square. We were thankful we weren't in Rio then.
The square's statue represented the country's Catholic origin and included the first president. I referenced the country's history with slavery earlier in the post. Sophia discussed it more and revealed the Jesuits said the Africans had no souls which allowed slavery to exist.
Not far away was the cone-shaped building that was the Metropolitan Cathedral, built in 1980 in the Brutalism style, something we had not heard of before. Sophia said it was best to visit on a sunny day to view the stained glass that rose 60 meters from floor to ceiling. The cathedral had a capacity of 20,000 people! It was another sight we added to our 'to see' list!
The tiled works of art paid homage to artists of all types in the Lapa area, the former red-light district. It was now Rio's center of a vibrant music scene with dozens of samba clubs, bars and restaurants.
We couldn't miss seeing the interior of the new Cathedral!
From one extreme to another in terms of architectural religious style was the Igreja São Francisco da Penitência & Convento de Santo Antônio, the magnificent church and convent atop the hill we'd first seen at the beginning of the tour.
One of the images on the ceiling depicted St. Francis receiving the stigmata.
The church's stunning sacristy, which dated from 1745, had blue Portuguese tiles and an elaborately carved altar made of jacaranda wood. It was of no wonder the series of chapels were considered the jewel of Brazilian baroque architecture.
You might have thought we'd had enough of churches by then but we decided to return to the church known simply as the Royal Church or the Old Cathedral. Beginning in the 1770s, the church played an important role in Rio's imperial days.
I'll leave you with photos of Rio's glorious sunset from the beach, just a five minute walk from our hotel.
Posted on June 2nd, 2018, from Grayton Beach State Park in Florida.
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