Rio's Metropolitan Cathedral was completed in 1979 and is the latest replacement of a series of cathedrals on this spot dating back to 1676. It is 246 feet tall, 315 feet wide and can hold 20,000 standees. Huge! The top of the cathedral is a cross from which 4 stained glass windows radiate to the floor.
I like all these green circles at O Cristo Redentor. There are almost the same number of umbrellas are there are lights.
A character from Star Wars? No, it's just an antique mail box that they have left on the street because it is so beautiful. How do I know this? - The mail slot is taped over.
The view from Corcovado is spectacular and shows Rio's amazing, wondrous topography. (Corcovado is O Cristo Redentor's mountain)
This dramatic statue of a dying soldier was in the median of the boulevard that borders Copacabana Beach and it was right in front of our hotel. It is the "18 do Forte" Statue symbolizing soldiers dying for the modernization of Brazil and the fight against corrupt politicians in 1922.
As we stood in front of our hotel we saw three bicyclists (tricyclists?) going down the bike lanes next to the wavy sidewalk each sporting a pretty big billboard.
Our hotel in Rio de Janeiro was on Copacabana Beach. When I say 'on the beach' I mean it was across the street and across this wide sidewalk, just like every other hotel that is 'on the beach'. The wavy design of Copacabana's sidewalk is known the world over. You may notice a narrow curbed two-lane 'road' between the walkway and the street: this is a bicycle and running path. Most of the South American cities we visited had them.
While we're on the subject of graffiti, I hope you can figure out why I'm sending you this photo.
I've mentioned before that South American cities seem to have a lot of graffiti, some of it very artistic. Here's one in Rio that is quite striking in just black and white.
In Rio we had lunch in a most fantastically decorated restaurant: the ceiling was covered with anything and everything! Then the women's restroom - the floor was sparkly loose gravel and the lavatories were half-filled with loose gravel. There was no explanation so I can't give any enlightenment on this score. It was just a little hard to walk on the floor and I wondered how they cleaned it all!
Marmosets are monkeys and this one is about the size of a small cat, sighted at the tram station on Sugar Loaf. It was climbing all over the food vendors' cases, but the vendors must be used to it since they didn't shoo it away. But it couldn't get at the food either. A little cutie!
The view from Sugar Loaf is spectacular and as you can see Rio is worth seeing from a height! This is beautiful Copacabana Beach; not only did we see it from here, we saw it up close because our hotel was right on the beach. More about that later.
To get to the top of Sugar Loaf, one has to take two trams, one from the street level and a second one from an intermediate station. Yesterday's photo was taken at the intermediate station. So is today's photo looking back down to the roundabout next to the big parking lot for the mountain tram.
We came into Rio de Janeiro in the late evening, so this is a photo of our first sight, taken from the ship. The central feature is Sugar Loaf Mountain and the bright light on the peak to the left of Sugar Loaf is Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) on Corcovado Mountain.
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