Day 2. Rio de Janeiro
After breakfast in your hotel you will be taken to a shared tour to the mythical Sugarloaf mountain, protruding abruptly from out of the ground like an asteroid just fallen from space. A magnificent cable car ride will take you up to Urca Mountain, the stop off between ground level and Sugarloaf. From there you can enjoy a smooth cocktail or sample some of Brazil’s many signature dishes. Once arriving at the top of Sugarloaf mountain you will see the captivating beauty of Rio from a different angle, To your left you can see Copacabana beach stretching off into the distance, and on the horizon the faint outlines of Two Brothers and Gávea mountains. Below you is the quaint and intimate Red Beach, while to your right you can see across Guanabara Bay to Niterói and, closer in, Rio’s Botafogo and central neighborhoods, with the unmistakable silhouette of Christ the Redeemer casting its eternal gaze over the city. This trip is essential to gain a different perspective on Rio, and to truly understand its beauty. After descending the mountain by cable car, you will head into the Old Town and Centre, where colonial architecture still remains and many old churches such as the Candelária are still in use. The cobbled streets and bright colors are a stark contrast to the whitewashed, sun soaked streets of Ipanema but in many ways are part of the authentic, nearly-forgotten Rio of old, and one can almost feel the hustle and bustle of hundreds of years ago when these streets were filled with merchants and citizens of the Portuguese Empire.
