Brazil
Rio Carioca

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    • Day 11

      Arraial do Cabo - day 4

      January 14, 2023 in Brazil ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

      Last day in Arraial we woke up early and went to the second most beautiful beach in the area - Praia do Forno. In our opinion that was the best beach in the region but can be that we were also influenced by the fact that 8:30 in the morning the beach was still very empty and we had this beautiful place almost for ourselves. When we left around 11:00 the beach was packed and thousands of people were hiking to the beach. Yes hiking, in order to reach the beach you need to hike for 10-15 minutes or take boat taxi. We absolutely loved it but would not recommend to go to Arraial in high season. At 14:00 we departed by bus to Rio to spend following 6 night there. We were immediately impressed by the beauty of our hotel. After dinner we returned to the room and nice surprise was waiting for us 😍Read more

    • Day 12

      Rio de Janeiro - day 1

      January 15, 2023 in Brazil ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

      After delicious breakfast and trying to figure out what we all want to see here we decided to take Uber to Maracanã Stadium to do the tour. Flo was checking everything out and was very happy 😄 I as not a big football fan found the tour also really cool and definitely better then the one we did one year ago in Madrid. After the tour we left outside waited ages for next taxi. The temperatures here are crazy 😅 in the center it was showing 38 degrees but we are not sure if that was correct… our next stop was museum of tomorrow (Museu do Amanhã) this place is not only impressive from outside but also really interesting inside. We usually do not go to museum but here we spent 3 hours checking the current exposition about Amazon rainforest and standard tour about universe, our planet, humans and future 👌🏼 it was super educational and interesting. Next to the museum was also a really cute local market with live music and the Olympic boulevard. This area is called Porto Maravilha and it’s relatively new area of Rio. We found there really cool food market and amazing graffiti wall made by famous artist from São Paulo Eduardo Kobra. As a Christmas gift we got from Flo’s parents tickets for Sugar Loaf mountain. I really wanted to go up for sunset and as we had fast track ticket we could also skip the line. So thankful for this fast track tickets (thank you Martin & Katrin ☺️) we overpassed around 1000 desperately waiting tourists, got to VIP lounge, got drinks for free and departed with next gondola up 😍. We enjoyed the views, got some food and drinks and watched amazing sunset 🤩 the prices in the restaurants up there were also reasonable and I didn’t find any price difference compared to the city. Although there were lot of people it didn’t felt that crazy. Due to two cable cars people spread in the area and we didn’t have to wait for the cable cars that long. We returned back to hotel quite late, tired and happy ☺️Read more

    • Day 13

      Rio de Janeiro - day 2

      January 16, 2023 in Brazil ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

      Today we wanted to take it slow 🙊 we departed 10:30 from hotel drop the laundry, got some cash and took taxi to the Royal Botanical Garden. You can either walk around by yourself or take the tour with golf caddy. We decided to walk and enjoy the park. It was really cool and calm 😍 we saw many trees and plants from Amazon rainforest, huge palm trees and orchid garden 😁 next stop was Parque Lage. Beautiful Vila and park built once for industrialist Henrique Lage and opened later for public. The Vila is very beautiful but due to Instagram this place got extremely popular. Inside of Vila there is supposed to be a nice cafe but we would have to wait for 1,5 hour to get a table. So we just took picture from outside and left to cafe we saw on the way. For the rest of the day we wanted to rent bikes and bike along the beach. Rio has a really good network of shared bikes. Unfortunately foreigners cannot use their app and the only possibility is to go to the self service machines (which not every bike station have). We went to 3 different stations, tried to put our details twice in but without success… what a shame that some things are just so complicated for foreigners 😅 luckily one American guy is offering bike rental close to Copacabana so for 10€ we got 2 bikes for next 2 hours. We drove 12 km along Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon beach till the Leblon Viewpoint. It was really amazing experience and we enjoyed it a lot 🤩 and we are already planning to go back to the beach other day 😍🇧🇷Read more

    • Day 14

      Rio de Janeiro - day 3

      January 17, 2023 in Brazil ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

      Today we wanted to see the statue of Christ the Redeemer on the top of Corcovado mountain. There are two ways to visit the site - special taxi which takes you below the statue to the visitor center and then hike up the hill or to take the rack railway Corcovado which takes you directly under the statues. As the train station is walking distance from our hotel the choice was clear for us. The train starts running from 7:00 in the morning so we decided to go directly in the morning and escape the crowds and heat. Unfortunately 6:40 there was already crazy queue 😅😅😅 luckily we managed to get on the first train and be one of the first ones on the top. We enjoyed the view took the pictures and returned back to our hotel quite early for hotel breakfast and chill by the pool. In the afternoon we planned to do the hike. Flo was not feeling well and we decided to relax for the rest of the day.Read more

    • Day 15

      Rio de Janeiro - day 4

      January 18, 2023 in Brazil ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

      Today was a very packed day. We spent the whole day in the city center, visited all the important sights and walked almost 15km. I finally persuaded Flo to take public bus in Rio (twice 🤣) otherwise we were always using Uber which is very affordable depending on distance we usually pay between 2-5€. Bus ride costs here around 0,8€ 😎 I really wish we would have these prices in Munich. Our first stop was the famous staircase Escadaria Selaron built by the artist Jorge Selaron in 23 years. It’s amazing collection of more than 2000 different tiles collected from more then 60 countries around the world. Unfortunately also this places became next insta hotspot and at the beginning of the staircase it was impossible to move 😅. Very close to the staircase is the Carioca Aqueduct and Cathedral of Rio. Cathedral has very unique form and it’s very ugly from outside and interesting from inside. Definitely something special. Maybe 15 minutes walk from the cathedral you can find another very important buildings of former capital city of Brazil - municipal theater and national library. It is possible to enter the library for free. It is the biggest library in Latin America with the collection of more than 9 million of books. Very impressive building and interior. After little break at nearby cafe we started to walk to the next famous library - Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading. On the way we saw very nice restaurant “comida por kilo” so after seeing the second library we sat for while and eat tasty and cheap lunch (lunch for 2 and 3 drinks for 10€). After checking clothes market, one more church and spending all our money in pharmacy 🤣 we were pretty tired. We took second bus up to the hill to the Santa Teresa district to have dinner and walk a bit around this art neighborhood. Santa Teresa is famous for its yellow tram, views over the city and restaurant Bar do Mineiro. This restaurant is famous for the best Feijoada in Rio. Feijoada is Brazilian National dish - stew of beans, sausage and meat served with rice, orange and spinach. So we of course had to try it. The food was good, not the best dish we ever ate but definitely tasty 👌🏼.Read more

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