South America › Brazil

Rio de Janeiro

70 photographs · 11 venues

Photographs

Places worth going

Arraial do CaboDon't missTownsThe water here is unreal, properly turquoise, and the whole town is built around getting you out into it. Stay in Arraial rather than Cabo Frio - every boat leaves from Praia dos Anjos and you want to be walking distance from it. Climb the hill behind the town for the view down onto Prainhas do Pontal do Atalaia, all cactus and white sand and boats sitting on their own shadows, and go back up in the evening. Four days felt about right and I would go again tomorrow.Cabo FrioDon't missActivitiesThis is the dive, and it is the only reason I have any photographs of Cabo Frio. Green water rather than the blue you get on the boat trips, maybe ten metres of visibility, rock and weed rather than coral - and then a green turtle that hung around long enough for everyone to get their picture. It is colder than you expect for Brazil, so take the thicker suit if they offer you one.Cristo RedentorDon't missLandmarksYou go, and you should, and then you spend most of it looking at the back of other people's phones. Get there as early as you can manage - by mid-morning the platform is shoulder to shoulder and everybody is lying on the floor trying to fit the whole thing in one frame. The statue itself is worth it from directly underneath, which is the angle nobody puts on a postcard: enormous, plain concrete up close, and much more impressive for it. Give it half a day by the time you have queued at both ends.Mirante do Pontal do AtalaiaDon't missViewpointsDrive up for the sunset and nothing else. The cliff faces the right way, the sun drops into the sea behind the islands, and you can see the whole coast from up there. It is ten minutes out of town and everyone has the same idea, so go early enough to park.Pão de AçúcarDon't missViewpointsGo up for sunset and then do not leave. Almost everyone rides the cable car back down as soon as the sun is gone, and the twenty minutes after that is the best part of it - the whole bay going navy, the boats still out on it, and Rio switching its lights on underneath you one district at a time. Buy the ticket for late afternoon so you get both, take something warm because it comes up off the water, and let the first two cable cars down go without you.Parque Olímpico do RioDon't missLandmarksI went for the Paralympics, which is not something you can go back and do. Sitting volleyball one evening and another session the next morning, both of them full, both of them louder than I expected, and the tickets cheap enough that you could just turn up and pick something. Walking around the park after dark with all of it lit up was worth an hour on its own. Whether the place is worth anything now that everyone has gone home I genuinely do not know.Praia BravaDon't missOutdoorsA walk over the headland from town and then nothing - white sand, turquoise water, and on the morning I went about six other people on the whole beach. The trail starts up by the road and drops down through the scrub, and it is worth doing slowly because the view along the coast on the way down is half of it. There is no kiosk, no shade and no anything, so take water. Easily the best hour I had in Arraial.Praia do FarolDon't missOutdoorsYou can only get here by boat and that turns out to be the best part. The trip runs around Ilha do Farol under the granite, into the cave, past the lighthouse on top, and the water goes from deep navy to a turquoise I did not really believe until I was in it. The beach at the end is white sand and shallow and busy in the way a good beach is busy. Do not try to be clever about the boats, just take the one from Praia dos Anjos with everyone else.PrainhaDon't missOutdoorsWell out west of the city and worth the drive on its own - the coast road gets better the further you go and people keep stopping to look at it. The beach is small, in a horseshoe of green, with surf and a fraction of the crowd you get anywhere near Copacabana. Time it so you are driving back at sunset.Vista ChinesaDon't missViewpointsWent up the first afternoon and could not see the railing in front of me, the whole mountain was sitting inside a cloud. Went back the next day and it was the best view I got of the entire city - the lagoon, Ipanema and Leblon behind it, Dois Irmaos, the sea going on past all of it, and almost nobody else up there. If it is in cloud when you go, just go back another day. It is worth the second trip.Praia de IpanemaWorth a stopOutdoorsGrey and blowing the morning I got there and it had not put a single person off. Dois Irmaos at the end of the sand is the shot everyone comes for, and the beach works whatever the sky is doing - chairs, umbrellas, and someone offering you something every couple of minutes. Go, but you do not need to build a day around it.