"City of Wonders" as Rio is known in Brasil.. Indeed! As soon as you get out of the airport and on your way to your hotel you begin to appreciate the wonders of that city. Rio is misjudged by foreigners and the bad press towards the violence in the city doesn't help. Honestly my husband and I felt completely safe there.
We didn't have friends living there or booked some overpriced tour. We were all alone. We stayed at the Copacabana Beach and we had a breathtaking ocean view room. If you can, try to stay in Copacabana, Ipanema or Leblon. Those are amazing neighborhoods and that spectacular Sugar Loaf view its right there.
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| Copacabana Beach |
At night they have very nice "seasonal markets" along the "Copacabana Calçadão" where you can find all kinds of things from paintings to swimsuits. It's the perfect place for those souvenirs! Also there are bars and great restaurants all over the place.
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| Seasonal Markets - Copacabana |
I wouldn't take any kind of public transportation and I'd also avoid cabs. You can never be too safe. I'd rather walk everywhere. Worst case scenario get the hotel to book you a cab. After we were already there for a few days we walked by a tour agency by the hotel that had pretty good prices so we decided to book a couple of tours. They picked us up at the hotel and dropped us off, what was pretty convenient.
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| Favela Rocinha (Slums) |
We booked the "Rocinha" witch was pretty cool but I wouldn't advise anyone to do so. It's a very dangerous place to go specially if you don't speak Portuguese. It's like going to see the Pyramids in Egypt, you will definitely see some pretty cool stuff but you take a chance of being mugged, kidnapped and raped or murdered. The other tour we booked was "Rio for a day" witch turned out to be amazing.
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| Christ The Redeemer |
We saw all the major attractions of the city and we got a free lunch "Brazilian Style". We had a blast on our vacation in Rio and we will go back many times for sure. Despite all the bad press, its definitely our favorite city in Brasil!
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