Brazil -Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro probably the most beautiful name for a city in the whole world. If you hear the name the first thought for sure is the song ,,Samba de Janeiro „“ It´s the world famous carnival city, where millions of people are dancing in the streets and celebrating carnival.

Also famous for Rio is of course the Christ Statue, the sugarloaf with an amazing view over the city and the Copacabana where the ladies are wearing the shortest bikinis in the world.

We have visited Rio de Janeiro lately for 3 days and picked the greatest spots for you.

1. The Cristos Redentor Statue

One of the biggest highlights – you should take a selfie in front of the Christ Statue once in a lifetime. The 30 meters high statue belongs to the seven wonders of the world since 1981 and is the main attraction in the city. We started very early in the morning to get a great picture, if you start to late it will be very crowded at this place. A shuttle bus brought us up to the highest bus stop, from there you can take the elevator or use the stairs.

Before you want to climb up the Christ Statue, you should check the webcam at the Statue if the view is good, because it makes no sense to climb up the Christ Statue when the view is bad because of the weather. The price for the the ticket is about 12 USD.

2. Copacabana

Unfortunately it was not the best day to walk along the Copacabana. It was very stormy and it was raining all the time. But we still walked along the Copacabana to check out the famous beach areas.

Copacabana-Beach

Copacabana-Beach

The four kilometer long beach is divided in different beach sections. For example number 7 you can find a lot of surfers, number 8 is mostly for gays and number 9 mostly for hippies. Here you can see a lot of people smoking weed and having a lot of  fun.

3. “Escadaria de Selaron” the steps in Lapa

An artist named Jorge Selaron started out in 1990 to stick 250 small parts of tiles – with a lot of effort – on the steps in Lapa. Nowadays the steps are a real hotspot in Rio and became very famous. It was really fascinating how much work and patience Jorg Selaron put into decorating the steps. We were impressed, when we saw our Bremer Stadtmusikanten from our city on the steps it was sooo awesome.

By the way, everybody had the chance to send a tile with a smile off his city to the artist and with a little bit of luck, you can find your own unique step!!

2005 the steps officially won an award and they were even presented in Brazils video applying for the olympic games in 2016.

Unfortunately you can´t the admire the artist at work anymore, because he died in 2013.

4. Dona Marta Favela – Michael Jackson Square

Rio has four favelas. The people in the favelas are quite poor and there is a lot of crime. By the way, four days before we started to visit the favela, somebody shot down a helicopter, four people died at this horrible attack. But we still visited the famous Dona Marta Favela. This is where the amazing and world famous videoclip“ they don’t care about us“ from Michael Jackson was produced in 1995. The favela is located on a hill so you have the best view from the top.

Michael Jackson Mosaic

Michael Jackson Square

It is only possible to visit the favela with a local guide! We were driving up with a special elevator and 3 other people from the favela. We walked very carefully through the narrow streets inside of the favela. Unfortunately we saw a lot of trash and we have never seen so many satellite dishes on the roofs before. It was quite interesting for us to walk around and the inhabitants were very friendly to us.

Directly at the Michael Jackson Square we could admire a statue and a mosaic wall with a portrait of Michael Jackson. Somehow it is a great feeling but also a little bit weird, that Michael Jackson has been here once.

Rio de Janeiro Favela

5. The Olympic Village

Of course it was on our list to see the Olympic Village. Honestly we were quite curious where the athletes were living and how stadiums look like now, but is was too disappointing for us. All the stadiums are in very bad condition and nobody cares about it anymore!

Thats really a shame…

6. Lapa -The party area in Rio

In Lapa is the party hotspot. In this part of Rio was our Hotel Vila Galé located. Only five minutes to walk to the party area. There are a lot of great restaurants, bars and clubs where you can go out in the evening and follow the rhythm of „Samba Music.“

Beside our favorite drink Gin Tonic don’t forget to try Caipirinha.

We really had a great time in Rio de Janeiro, especially our guide was so great, he was doing everything to show us the best spots of the city, but is was sometimes not so easy for him because of the weather. The city has definitely a lot of nice places but on the other side a lot of poverty.

We are very glad that we could visit the city with Gustavo our great guide, and who knows maybe we visit Rio again.

Infobox

Hotel:

Hotel Vila Galé

Visa:

Visa free

Currency:

Brazil Real BRL

The current course you can look up at Oanda 

Language:

Portuguese

Local Time:

You can read the local times here

High Season:

The best time for Brazil here

Health:

Malaria:
You should looking for a doctor and tell him, which country you visit in the next time.
Malariaprophylaxe is very expensive but the health insurance will pay for it.

Yellow fever:
Yellow fewer is very important. Even this will be paid by the health insurance.
Please tell them the situation.
Vaccination card must be available for the entry

Hepatitis:
Check your vaccination card from the doctor. The health insurance will pay for that.

Safety

You can find all entry requirements at the listed embassies

Embassy:

For US Embassy: link
For UK Embassy: link
For AUS Embassy: link

Information about Gustavo

Name:

Gustavo di Biase Faro

Languages:

Portuguese
English
Spanish
Italian
French

Contact:

faro.tourguide@gmail.com

About Gustavo

Gustavo is a great, funny and very reliable guide! We can highly recommend him because he was taking very good care of us and he was also very flexible. He was showing us all the not tourist places, where the locals are enjoying the summer in Rio, which was making our tour in Rio with Gustavo very unique. He made everything possible for us. We are sooo glad that we did the tour through Rio with him.

Thank you soooo much Gustavo for the great time !

Saskia and Bastian

Information about Jonatas Nogueira

Guide for the Favela

Name:

Jonatas Nogueira

Languages:

Portuguese

English 

Contact:

 Jonatas facebook 

About Jonatan

Joanatas is a very nice guide he told us a lot over the inhabitants and the favelas. He was guiding us through the small alleys and explained us about the situation of the people here. Because he knows a lot of people there. In this way was not a problem to walk through the Favela.

Thank you so much for the nice short tour with you!

Saskia & Bastian