Glass cubes

This is about two glass cubes. The first photo is in the Rio airport and signifies the end of our South American trip. The glass cube is a smoking room in an otherwise non-smoking airport. The second glass cube is the elevator from the basement garage to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Yes, it is outdoors.

Metropolitan Cathedral

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.

Rio de Janeiro's Metropolitan Cathedral is a most impressive rounded pyramid. I'm not too happy that I didn't get both the entrance and the top together in one photo so here are two so you can get the full picture, so to speak!

Carnival

We visited the location of Rio's Carnival and they make some money from the tourists in the off-season by letting them put on a Carnival costume (for $5). Of our Elderhostel group, only Mary was game. She and we enjoyed it tremendously.

Decorating the decoration

Even this changing room on Copacabana Beach already decorated with the signature wavy pattern of the sidewalk isn't immune from further decoration!

Sorry about the car in the foreground but as is the case with many of my photographs, I had to catch the scene on the fly from our bus.

Soldier

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.

Bike billboards

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.

Graffiti

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.

Smile!

A happy bus in Rio de Janeiro

Fiscal Island Palace

Built as a Customs building in 1889, this green palace is on Fiscal Island in Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro. It was designed by Adolfo del Vecchio and built under the direction of Dom Pedro II, the second and last emperor of Brazil. It was also the site of the last Imperial Ball. A military coup d'etat on November 15, 1889 overthrew the monarchy. The Emperor and his family went into exile in Portugal, and Brazil created a new federalist, republican government under the Brazilian Constitution of 1891.

Roundabout

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.

First sight of Rio

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.

Back in the late 60's I had a Harvey Mandel LP that I loved called Cristo Redentor. Ignorant of Portuguese (Redentor is Spanish too) as I am, I thought he had made up that name!

Sunset

We spent two days at sea between Montevideo and Rio de Janiero and on the second evening there was a beautiful sky. Many ship's passengers were out taking photos and I took a bunch. It was hard to choose which one to show you!