Brazil Sightseeing Guide #1 - Urca, Rio de Janeiro
Many of you ever heard of the Sugar Loaf, Pão de Açúcar in portuguese, one of Brazil's most known postcards around. The place have been in the pictures and hearts of people all across the globe and even in movies like the Academy Award winning 007 franchise movie Moonraker. The name makes an allusion to the format of the geological structure, composed by a higher spire and the lower hill, that resembles a loaf with sugar topping, in this case a few acres of rainforest at the summit.
This view...oh this view! Gorgeous, isn't it?
Over the hills there's a cable car system, cherishly named bondinho, where anyone paying the entrance can ride for a jaw dropping view of the Guanabara Bay and Rio de Janeiro. Curiously enough, the actual name of the mountain is Morro da Urca, or Urca's Hill. The name comes from the Urca neighborhood, a high class region of Rio de Janeiro's South Zone, that makes borders with Botafogo and Copacabana.
An unforgettable view.
If one doesn't want to pay the fare to ride the cable car, maybe you should try hiking up to the summit. A short but no less beautiful walk awaits you. It's slightly steep in the beginning, but after the first stage is passed, a gentle 30 minutes walk will take you to the summit. There's a vista in the middle of the way, where you can find a surprising and gorgeous view of the backside of the Sugar Loaf. A must see! There you can find some of the rainforest fauna, with some very friendly marmosets, blue butterflies and even blood red brazilian tanager - if you're lucky enough.
Important places are located at Urca, like the IME - Instituto Militar de Engenharia - Military Institute for Engineering, the former Royal Academy of Artillery, Fortifications and Design, a graduation college of the Brazilian Army focused on military engineering and science development. The college, founded in 1792, is considered to be one of the best in the entire country.
Front of IME's main building.
Moving towards Botafogo we can find the Benjamin Constant Institute, a reference school specialized in classes for the visual impaired. The main building was built circa 1890 and lies preserved and functional until present days.
Benjamin Constant Institute
Up ahead we find the Rio de Janeiro's Yacht Club, a notorious high class leisure facility, that posesses a personal marina and is populated with pleasure boats, powerboats and yachts.
Internal view of Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club's marina
Up ahead we can find the Phillipe Phinel Insitute, a former asylum that now focuses on psychiatric treatment. Due to its notoriety, the word pinel was incorporated to the brazilian vocabulary as a slur for a "crazy" or "insane" individual. Right at the side of the institute, lies the Rio de Janeiro's Federal University, Urca Campus.
The institute and the university share the same entrance
To finish this post, we end with the Rio Sul mall, founded in 1980. The mall contains a big cinema and even a large fitness centre, with several restaurants and a variety of stores.
Front end of the Rio Sul mall
This concludes the first post of the Sightseeing Guide series. Do you have any suggestions? Please let me know! Thanks and steem on!
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Parabéns, seu post foi votado e compartilhado pelo projeto Brazilian Power, cuja meta é incentivar a criação de mais conteúdo de qualidade, conectando a comunidade brasileira e melhorando as recompensas no Steemit. Obrigado!
Muito obrigado! É uma grande honra para mim! Podem ter certeza que continuarei criando conteúdo de qualidade para mostrar quão belo é o Brasil!
it's so beautiful!
Yeah! Rio is a flawed place, but it has its beauties...and these aren't lacking at all!
Thanks!
thanks a lot mate, i’m in the region at the moment, i was searching for some inspiration, i found some! muito obrigado! check my steem for travel stories :)