Marph goes to Rio de Janeiro

This Easter we jetted off for a long weekend in Rio! 

After 9 months in Brazil we finally made it there! 

We went to all the famous attractions and sights such as:

Sugar Loaf Mountain,

Christ the Redeemer Statue on Corcovado Mountain, 

and Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon beaches. 

We also enjoyed exploring less well known sights such as: 

The Municipal Theatre,

The Carioca Aqueduct, 

and the Selaron steps all in the Lapa area. 

We also went to the botanical gardens where we saw lots of cheeky monkeys, mango trees, giant lily pads and sunning turtles. 

And there was time for a walk along the promenade of the lagoon Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas with good views of the Christ the Redeemer Statue when it's not covered in cloud. 

We spent a lot of time standing in really long queues to all the main sights, 

but made up for it by spending lots of time here too. 

We mostly caught taxi's or used the metro but I really enjoyed our one bus ride from Corcovado back down to Ipanema beach. 

We enjoyed lots of good food, from the simpler hunger buster,

to the indulgent eat all you can eat carnivore experience at Porcao Rio's.

We had to taste Kopenhagen chocolate to see if it lived up to it's name of Brazil's best chocolate. It did. 

And of course no Summer holiday would be complete without lots of ice-cream! 

Carioca's seem to eat on the go a lot. There are loads of these all-standing snack and juice bars on every corner perfect for a quick top up before or after the beach. 

Havaianas are also getting ready for the world cup, it wouldn't be Brazil without them. 

We had a fabulous and full weekend squeezing as much as possible into such a short time. 

We felt safer than we expected to and although it was really hot, it was cooler than our current home town of Vitoria. 

The city was crazy busy though and we can only imagine the impending chaos during the coming world cup! 

Stay tuned for Justin and Bronwen's version of the Rio weekend coming soon!