Day trip in Rio

The "must visit" site in Rio
During a recent work trip to Argentina and Brazil, I had the weekend off between countries. The best option I could think of was to spend the week-end in Rio. Basically, I  only had the Saturday free in Rio. I flew in on the Friday afternoon and departed again on the Sunday afternoon. So not much time in Rio. Best option was to do a day tour. I booked this through Viator (www.viator.com) before I left. Shortly after booking and paying, I got confirmation of my pick up. I was very happy with booking my tours on this system and I have not had any difficulties with this.I have previously also booked a few other trips with them. The tour operators arrived at the hotel, pretty much at the time stated on my voucher as the the pick up time. A broken elevator at one of the lifts at the next pick up put them a bit behind with their other pickups, but they really tries their best to be on time. It was a mixed language tour and there were only three English speakers on board. Not too much of the tour was done in English, but we were looked after.
Lots of people

First stop was to see Christ the Redeemer statue with arms outstretched over looking Rio. This is the most icon image of Rio and a must see on every ones list when in Rio. With the Friday being a long weekend, it was seriously busy. We waited for quite some time to get our tickets and then we waited more to get the park bus up to the statue. This is in a nature reserve. Beautiful forest. The only way up is to get a nature park mini van for the ride up. Wait, wait and more wait! Eventually we made it up. Stunning views of Rio. Well worth it. There were just lots of people there, making everything very crowded. The tour guides of the many tours were all lying on their backs, taking photos for the people in their group with the statue behind them.

Beautiful views
After getting our bus, the next stop was the Football stadium. Really not much to see.  Guess the folks in Brazil love football! After all Brazil is the only country in the world to qualify for every single world cup. I would love to watch a football match in the stadium. Later in the tour I did get to watch a top division football match. You can find this in my blog.


Really great views of Rio
Then it was on to the venue where the Rio carnival takes place. Interesting. You could hire carnival outfits and go and dance in the street! There was a bunch elderly Australians there, all dressed up. Quite a sight for sore eyes!

Group dressed up in outfits

Then it was on to lunch! Brazilian steak house where they just keep on bringing meat! Not a place for the vegans! Meat, meat and more meat. It was time to chat to a few other people in the group. There was a lawyer from Germany, an accountant from Brazil, a guy from Japan who works for a aluminium company and two teachers from Argentina. The meat just keeps on coming. I have worked out a plan. The cheaper cuts of meat come first, so you fill up on that. The best cuts only come later in the meal. It was a great meal.

Then it was off to sugar loaf mountain. Two cable car rides. Again wait, wait and more wait. This time it was not as crowded.Once again, stunning views of Rio. It really is a very beautiful city. There were two cable car trips. The first was to quite a large flat mountain and then the final one was up to the highest point. The actual Sugar loaf mountain. It was not very big on top of the mountain, but again really stunning views of Rio. There are two airports in Rio, so it is pretty important that you make sure where you plane departs from. The International airport, which also does a lot of domestic flights is quite far out of the city.

Cable car up sugar loaf mountain - first stop
The final stop on the tour was the Seraron Steps. These are steps done by the artist Jorge Selaron. He started renovating dilapidated steps which were in front of his house with fragments of colourful tiles. He eventually covered the entire set of steps with files and mirrors. By the time we got there, it was already dark, so we did not get the full effect of the tiles. The delays at the various other attractions of the day had caught up with us.

Copacabana Beach


It was a very full day, and I would recommend this tour to anyone who has limited time in Rio.



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