Today a guided tour when we were exposed to the deeper aspects of the marvellous city.
Raquel our guide, fluent in English and Rio know how, gave us an insider's view lacing her narrative with great humour and wit. We started by taking the long tunnel from Lagoa through to Como Vehlo and on to the Macarana stadium and the Sambadrome. She served up a gentle diet of facts and somewhat fables about both and made it very clear that she was not always a fan of everything we were seeing. The Carnival, for example, is an acquired taste and she has not yet been convinced about it for herself whilst nevertheless acknowledging the importance it has for the Samba school members most of whom come from the favelas and the struggling end of town.
From the outskirts of the old city, we headed along wide avenues full of hectic traffic, created by demolishing slums in a bid to make Rio the Paris of the Southern Hemisphere after Haussmann. In the crowded alleyways of Saara, people thronged after cheap goods and food. We were whisked away before temptation grew vocal and soon found ourselves at the remarkable Portuguese library "'Real Gabinete Portuguese de Leitura' built in 1837 to house 350000 works dating from the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. A privately run library, access to the books is made by individual subscription. We entered, were hushed and corralled and then drank in the overwhelming sensation of the magnificent reading room. A special experience for the digital pioneers and their companions!
In Centro and Lapa, the juxtaposition of old and new buildings piled together was mesmerising. Only at the Metropolitan Cathedral designed by Edgar Fonseca was there any sense of viewing space, as this extraordinary cone shaped place of worship rose from the square like an ancient Ziggurat with its edges rounded. The concrete construction is showing serious signs of neglect since its inauguration in 1976 and is long overdue a high powered jet stream cleanup such is the extent of the mildew. Why anyone would use concrete in a climate as humid and hot as Rio is a puzzle. That said, the interior was inspiring for its shadowy atmosphere overlaid with stained glass panels on four sides that rose to the whole height of the building.
We stopped for fuel at the 'Confeitaria Colombo', a historic eating place founded in 1894 and a living reminder of Rio's own Belle Époque. We drank the real Brazilian coffee which is made in a way unlike the American style but also unlike the Italian espresso process. It is mild and best drunk without milk although most of us did not observe that rule. Our guide was scornful of those who dared not emulate the Cariocans when it came to coffee drinking. We capitulated in the face of the pressure and drank only Rio style coffee.
The journey continued into the depths of Cinelandia and Carioca square and then to the Escadaria Selaron on the way up to the heights of Santa Teresa. The 215 step stairway, between Joaquim Silva in Lapa and Pinto Martins in Santa Teresa, is the vision of a Chilean artist Selaron who died in 2013. The collection of mosaics and tiles began by chance and became a personal quest that people from all of the world contributed to. Worth a closer look but we had to move on.
The final main site was the Museu Chacara do Ceu, the former grand residence of Raymundo Ottoni de Castro Maya and the Parque days Ruinas encircling the ruined mansion. The views through the rainy mists below were strangely appealing, such a contrast with the clear light of our first tour to the heights of Rio via Corcovado and Pao de Acucar.
The tour ended after six hours of sight-seeing in what must be one of the most diverse cities of the world. The buildings old and new, the sights preserved and desecrated, the thronging activities of multi coloured people in their hundreds of thousands, the street graffiti and sometimes art, the beauty of the beaches and the squalor of the favelas, rich and poor living side by side on hillsides, in soaring apartments and mansions.
We thanked Raquel warmly for her witty, well judged commentary and for giving us a fast track into Rio in a single day.
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