Day 10: Roaming in Rio

It may have taken 300 laps around Rio in the sky before landing but we finally made it to our last leg of the trip: Rio de Janeiro! Given that we'd had many an early morning, we decided to sleep in a bit before beginning our tour of the city. Many of you know I was in Rio two years ago as part of our World Cup trip, but I was very excited to be back! Especially since now I had more time to explore the city.

Views from the rooftop of our beach front hotel. Not too shabby, not too shabby.

So of course we needed to enhance the view by putting ourselves in it :)

We began our day by heading to the Centro and Lapa neighborhoods, to catch the beautiful steps of the Escaderia Selaron. Its essentially steps that look completely normal from the top, but if you catch them from the bottom, it's an explosion of red and yellow. There were tiles from all over the world, but sadly we didn't see one from Alabama, or Seattle for that matter. But they could also be there and we missed it, seeing as there were all the tiles.

World Cup! So many memories. But these steps weren't one of them, so I'm glad I got to add them to the list!

It was clearly quite dfifficult to get pictures without anyone in them. So for some, we contented ourselves with getting pictures of them taking selfies. I don't quite think a selfie could do these justice.

Texas Tech, really? But no Alabama? Come on.

A beautiful mosaic of the Brazilian flag. We just couldn't get enough of the tiles.

And then we have this very artistic and not at all accidental photo of the steps. Very modern. Probably should belong in a museum based on what I've seen.

Swaziland! And then I wanted to climb to get my picture with the "Brazil, I love you. -Selaron" tiles.

Ohio and Georgia for all you folks! And Mari found Texas! We also found a "Solomente Sexy" Mafalda for Ryan!

And Iguazu Falls was also represented! Been there done that now.

After that escapade, we headed to find the Municipal Theatre, Library, and Cathedral. The Municipal Theatre and library were easy enough to find but we had a harder time finding the Cathedral. This was probably because it looked more like an Aztec Pyramid than a Cathedral. No offense to Cariocas, but the outside of this thing is, how shall I put this nicely, ugly. However, the inside is full of fantastic stained glass! So that was very pretty! So I guess you could put this up to "don't judge a book by it's cover".

  

Fun signs and graffitti. I especially love the presence of Mona Lisa.

Potentially the artists behind the amazing graffitti. They had some great stuff in their shop, truly impressive what they are able to do with a spray paint can.

  

The Arches of Lapa! And  then us with the fun Rio Olympics 2016 mural. Very sporty.

We decided to play around with the arches.

Someone decided to walk in front of my pano, so my phone decided to cut them into pieces. Lesson learned.

In front of the Opera House! The pictures don't really show it, but it's a very fabulous theatre. Lots of gold and Baroque architecture.

But unfortunately, we were way to early for an english speaking tour :(

So we went inside the library instead! In the Top 10 for biggest libraries in the world! Although... there wasn't much to see other than the fab entryway. We tried to go to some of the floors and look around but, we weren't researchers so... oh well.

I mean, does that really look like a cathedral to you? I think we can be excused for not realizing it was the Metropolitan Cathedral. It even had this guy outside who was a little appalled at the design. But, as mentioned, the stained glass windows were on point.

3 of the 4 big panesls.

After that, we decided we needed some lunch so we stopped at a spot I'd previously visited, Cervantes. It's home to some amazing sandwiches and famous for its filet mignon with pineapple sandwich. So of course we had to get that one, and a chicken with pineapple one. Both were humongous and so satisfying. And since it was like 3pm, we were pretty much set for the day.

Now these are sandwiches. A must if you're ever in Rio!

It's probably a good thing we followed up the humongous meal with a walk down Copacabana. We walked the entirety and then some, following the curve around to the beginning of Ipanema. And as luck will have it, the sun was starting to set so we got some seriously stunning views as it started to get darker. It was perfection.

Their names with Mari and Cheryl... Copa, Copacabana.

And then we stumbled upon a mural memorializing the 2014 World Cup! Mari with her Argentina.

The whole shebang, or at least mayeb a 1/4th of it.

Immortalized forever: Luis Suarez, the Uruguaian biter; John Brooks, the US's savior against Ghana; and Messi, one of the best in the world.

Then we made our way to Ipanema! Just in time for the sunset.

We took their advice. You should too.

We wrapped up the evening by walking back and grabbing a small bite to eat on the beach. We had bolinhos de balcalhau and empanadas (of course) and mango caipirinhas. Now, a traditional caipirinha is made with lime, but I've also had strawberry, kiwi, and some brazilian fruit versions, but never a mango. Our advice? Skip the mango caipi. Maybe it was the cachaca they used, or something else, but it was not tasty. We managed to get down a manageable portion and then we were done. And even that was a struggle, especially with all the pulp in the glass. There may or may not have been multiple occasions where pulp got stuck on my face since it got stuck in the straw. Yikes.

Obviously these two were taken before we had actually ingested  the mango caipirinhas. I'm sure just a few seconds later our faces would have looked much different... but the food didn't disappoint!

But all in all, a great first day in Rio!