Day 43: Rio is a beautiful city!

After yesterday's no visibility at Cristo Redentor, we headed into the city praying for clear skies. We lucked out, it was a beautiful day. We headed to Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain) to check out the view of the city.

Pão de Açucar is a mountain peak at the mouth of Guanabara Bay, and is supposed to offer one of the best views of Rio (the other good view is from Cristo Redentor). It rises 396 meters above the city. It's accessible by cable cars, called teleférico, which run about every 20 minutes. You take a ride from the plaza/ground level to the peak of Morro da Urca (about 212 meters high; the one you can see in the picture below), and from Morro da Urca, another ride to Pão de Açúcar (on the left in the picture below).

View from the ground

Entrance to the cable car station

There were more long lines at the ticketing area, but it moved pretty quickly. Tickets cost R$ 62 (!!!) for full price, but I was able to use my old I.D. to get a student discount (R$ 31).

Wall art which we saw while waiting

Wall art

The cable cars. They fit about 50 people.

The view from Morro da Urca. Really breathtaking views of the city and you can really appreciate its beauty.

Christ the Redeemer with the city of Rio

Praia de Botafogo

We walked around the viewpoint, and everywhere we went the view just kept getting better and better.

Pão de Açúcar / Sugarloaf Mountain

The view from Pão de Açucar. That's Copacabana on the left, Praia Vermelha in front covered by the trees, Morro da Urca in the center, Christ the Redeemer is that little stick on the mountain the middle, and then Praia de Botafogo and Guanabara Bay on the right.

Copacabana in the back and Praia Vermelha in the front

We spent a lot of time just walking around taking in the view (and lots of pictures). We had lunch at one of the snack bars and then headed back down. Back down, we saw several people trying to climb the mountain behind the entrance to the ticketing station.

From there we headed to the Lapa neighborhood to find the famous colored steps. We didn't have a map but we had a general idea of where it was. We took the metro to Cinêlandia and then just asked around for the Arcos da Lapa which we knew where nearby.

Tried some street churros!

Passed by the Teatro Municipal, very lovely building

We found the Arcos da Lapa (Lapa Arches), formerly the Carioca Aqueduct, built to carry water from the Carioca River to the nearby neighborhoods.. At the arches we saw some tourist information people so they pointed us to the direction of the steps.

Lapa is a neighborhood in Rio located near the city center famous for its historical monuments and cultural life. It is one of the more local barrios I've seen, and has a lot of nice street art.

From the arches we turned left, followed the tourists and... here we are at Escadaria Selarón!

Escadaria Selarón, the work of Chilean artist Jorge Selarón, is his "tribute to the Brasilian people." He started working on the steps in 1990 which ran along the front of his house. He used a lot of blue, green and yellow tiles (colors of the Brasilian flag) which he found from various constructions sites and random places around the streets of Rio, and also tiles donated from around the world. The tiles are really beautiful and diverse - there are plain colored tiles as well as tiles with intricate designs, photos and quotes. There are also several tiles hand painted by Selarón.