Happy Days Travel

This morning, after a leisurely breakfast (our last hotel breakfast before the Premier Inn at Gatwick in May! 😂), we got packed up and checked out of the hotel. We asked them to store our bags for us while we went out for lunch.

We ended up going back to the same restaurant we ate at on our first evening in Rio. We shared a pizza and a salad. On the way back to the hotel, we picked up some bananas and drinks because we don't know how far our Airbnb is to the shops.

We ordered an Uber to take us to Brian's place in the Gloria district of Rio, home for the next four weeks. It's only 2.5 kilometres from where we've been staying, but I think it's mainly uphill, so a taxi is needed!

This, indeed, proved to be the case! Luckily, the Uber driver took us right to the door with all our luggage, and once we arrived, Brian, our host, found a strong guy to take our bags up the steep flight of 50 stairs to the terrace and a further 20-step narrow spiral staircase to our room! The room is adequate, and I can set up my office on the terrace. The shared kitchen is used by a couple of people who work for Brian in his camera hire business, Stefano from Italy, who has lived in Brian's smallest letting room for the past ten years, and us. It will be good to cook for ourselves after so long on the road!

There is a lovely view of the bay from a second terrace that gets the sun for most of the day, and Brian has said we can also use the terrace that belongs to his house next door.

Brian is British but has lived in Rio for the past fifty years. He's coming up to 80, but he certainly doesn't look it. He is now retired. During his working career, he was a freelance documentary film-maker who produced work for the BBC and ITV, amongst others.

Once Brian had shown us round, he left us to settle in. It was nice to be able to unpack properly for the first time on the whole trip! We didn't venture out again this afternoon. We had a banana each and a soft drink (Mark is staying off the beer to see if it helps his condition) and just relaxed!Читать далее