Obviously we loved Rio and the weather was good for us. The north of Brazil is under water since we arrived but the rain waited until we left to fall again in Rio.
The first two pages of photographs cover the general aspects of our stay: the beach, shopping and just lazing about. The other sections cover the visits to Cristo Redentor and Pão do Assucar , the best known icons of Rio.
We arrived on the afternoon of Sunday 3rd, and Rio was launching their candidature for the Olympics 2016. The official launch was in front of the Hotel Copacabana Palace.
Christ the Redeemer (Portuguese: Cristo Redentor, Cristo Rei or Cristo do Corcovado]) is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, created by Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot. The face was created by the Romanian artist Gheorghe Leonida.
The statue is 30 metres tall, not including its 8-metre pedestal and its arms stretch 28 metres wide. The statue weighs 635 tonnes is located at the peak of the 700-metre Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio.
A symbol of Christianity across the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, and is listed as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, and was constructed between 1922 and 1931. In order to reach the statue you need to climb 220 steps, however a flight of escalators was built recently to allow its older or weaker visitors to be able to get to the viewing area.
The idea of building a large statue atop Corcovado was first suggested in the mid-1850s, when Vincentian priest, Pedro Maria Boss, suggested it to honour Princess Isabel, princess regent of Brazil and the daughter of Emperor Pedro II, although the project was never approved. In 1889, the country became a republic and, with the official separation of state and church, the idea was dismissed.
It took around 9 years from 1922-1931 to build the statue mainly due to its cliff like location and cost the equivalent of US$250,000 (equivalent to $3,300,000 in 2015).
During the opening ceremony, the statue was supposed to be lit by a battery of floodlights turned on remotely by shortwave radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, stationed 9,200 km away in Rome but due to bad weather they were turned on on site. Christ the Redeemer is the 3rd tallest statue of Jesus in the world after Poland’s Christ the King and Bolivia’s Cristo de la Concordia.
Sugarloaf Mountain (Portuguese: Pão de Açúcar) is a peak situated at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising 396 meters above the harbor, its name. It is said that the name refers to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar. The lonely mountain is only one of several monolithic granite and quartz mountains that rise straight from the water's edge around Rio de Janeiro. It is known worldwide for its cableway and panoramic views of the city.
Ascent is made in two stages: first to the top of Urca Hill, travelling from Praia Vermelha to a height of 220 meters above sea level and then the cable car goes all the way to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain, for a breathtaking 360 degree view of Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara Bay, the city of Niteroi and the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
The original cable car line was built in 1912 and rebuilt around 1972/1973 and in 2008. The cable car leaves a ground station located at the base of the Babilônia hill, to the Urcahill and then to the Pão de Açúcar.
The return trip was uneventful if we can ignore the driving immersed in trucks. As I have told many times one cannot imagine what “trucks on the road” mean before you drive in Brazil. The impact of not having a national railway system it is so evident.
