Carnival in Rio de Janeiro

29 January 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  16 minutes

© flickr.com - Sergio Luiz/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Sergio Luiz/cc-by-2.0

The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro (Portuguese: Carnaval do Rio de Janeiro) is a festival held every year before Lent; it is considered the biggest carnival in the world, with two million people per day on the streets. The first Carnival festival in Rio occurred in 1723. The typical Rio carnival parade is filled with revelers, floats, and adornments from numerous samba schools which are located in Rio (more than 200 approximately, divided into five leagues/divisions). A samba school is composed of a collaboration of local neighbours that want to attend the carnival together, with some kind of regional, geographical and common background. There is a special order that every school has to follow with their parade entries. Each school begins with the “comissão de frente” (meaning “Front Commission”), that is the group of people from the school that appear first. Made of ten to fifteen people, the comissão de frente introduces the school and sets the mood and style of their presentation. These people have choreographed dances in elaborate costumes that usually tell a short story. Following the “comissão de frente” is the first float of the samba school, called “abre-alas” (“Opening Wing”). These are followed by the Mestre-sala and Porta-Bandeira (“Master of Ceremonies and Flag Bearer”), with one to four pairs, one active and three reserve, to lead the dancers, which include the old guard veterans and the “ala das baianas”, with the drum line battery at the rear and sometimes a brass section and guitars.   read more…

Copacabana and Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro

6 February 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

Copacabana © flickr.com - Juniorpetjua/cc-by-2.0

Copacabana © flickr.com – Juniorpetjua/cc-by-2.0

Copacabana is a bairro (neighbourhood) located in the South Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It is known for its 4 km (2.5 miles) balneario beach, which is one of the most famous in the world.   read more…

Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro

6 July 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

© Jorge Morales Piderit

© Jorge Morales Piderit

Christ the Redeemer is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot. Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida fashioned the face. Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 metres (98 ft) tall, excluding its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal. The arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide.   read more…

Belmond Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro

10 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels Reading Time:  5 minutes

© Charlesjsharp/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Charlesjsharp/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Belmond Copacabana Palace is a luxury hotel located on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. The hotel is widely considered as South America‘s premier hotel, and has received the rich and famous for over 90 years. It faces the coast, and consists of an 8-story main building and a 14-story annex. The Art Deco hotel was designed by French architect Joseph Gire. It has 216 rooms (148 in the main building and 78 in the annex), a semi-olympic swimming pool, an exclusive swimming pool for VIP guests located at the penthouse, a tennis court, fitness center, a 3-story spa, three bars all of them inside the respective restaurants, one with Italian food, one with pan-Asiatic and other with international food. It was inaugurated on August 13, 1923. It was featured in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio.   read more…

Challenge Bibendum

12 October 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  4 minutes

© Michelin Challenge Bibendum

© Michelin Challenge Bibendum

The Michelin Challenge Bibendum is a major annual sustainable mobility event, sponsored by the French tire company Michelin. In 1998, executives at Michelin made the decision to host an event that would showcase technological research into “clean vehicles” and allow them to be assessed in real operating conditions.   read more…

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