It's a wanderful life, so it is

Iconic. Glamorous. Popular. Dramatic. Beautiful. Vibrant. Breathtaking. Sexy.

But enough about us, let’s talk about Rio de Janeiro instead. Strictly, the proper name for the city is “São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro” but like any international superstar – Cher, Madonna, Jedward – is known by only one name : Rio.

Our hotel was almost perfect. Glasses of sparkling wine on arrival, a spacious room, sumptuous breakfasts and a view of the beach if you pressed your face against the window. On our arrival, we visited the rooftop bar for cocktails and a bite of lunch. We soaked in the views and wondered why people would choose to use the pool up here when the sea was just across the street. In the 1960s, the sea would have been even closer but a massive land reclamation project widened the beach and now its surface area is greater than Vatican City, though admittedly these two places are not really that similar. The dress code, for example, is very different.

The hotel had a desk at the door to provide beach towels and a gazebo on the beach where we could get an umbrella and deckchairs. We settled down with some cocktails purchased from one of the many beach vendors and watched the show that is Copacabana beach. I’m not sure what Copacabana means exactly but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was “land of the bum-cheek”. A great multitude were on display in all shapes and sizes and old age was no barrier.

Meanwhile, Mhairi kept saying the words “oh, what a sixpack” over and over again, while not even looking at me. It’s a place to be beach-ready and I certainly was in my knee-length swimming shorts.

The Rio shore was our favourite kind with big, bludgeoning waves but it’s really the setting that makes this iconic. Sugarloaf mountain at one end and Ipanema beach at the other with miles of soft sand and a beautiful sea view in between. Absolutely gorgeous.

I said the hotel was almost perfect. Our room seemed great but we hadn’t fully grasped the pitfalls of an adjoining door. Rio is a romantic city with a vibrant nightlife so it really shouldn’t have surprised us that the couple next door might return at 3am, bursting with passion. Unfortunately, we could hear every little thing and I suppose it’s admirable that neither swearing loudly in a North Belfast accent nor pleading for “Silêncio, por favor” knocked them off their stride. Eventually, we all managed to get some sleep and, once we’d changed rooms the following day, the hotel was perfect. My thoughts and prayers, however, are with the unlucky people who got room 209 after us. 

The most striking image of Rio is the art deco statue of Christ the Redeemer. The original design proposed that Christ would have a globe in one hand and a cross in the other. This was considered too difficult to construct and, to be honest, the silhouette of those welcoming outstretched arms looks much better anyway. We were aware that it’s a very popular spot so, cunningly, we booked an early morning taxi and train to arrive first and beat the crowds. Inevitably, we merely joined up with all the hundreds of cunning people who were also beating the crowds. So we all milled around the foot of the Redeemer, huddled together like penguins in a BBC documentary and posing for photos as if we were all Kate Winslet on the prow of the Titanic.

The statue is truly impressive though, exactly as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World ought to be. Our other main reasons for an early morning arrival was to avoid the clouds and luckily we had mostly clear skies for our trip to enjoy the spectacular views over the city and its bays. We could look down on Sugarloaf mountain where we had been the day before. 

To get a feel for the city, we had taken a hop on hop off bus and as we passed the Sugarloaf mountain cable car station, Mhairi noticed that the queue was quite small. That’s when we discovered it pays to be old in Brazil. Being 60, I paid half price for my ticket, which came with fast track privileges. Because Mhairi was with me (my carer?), she got fast track privileges too. These were particularly valuable as it took two cable cars to get to the top, so four rounds of skipping the big queues. And all I had to do to get these benefits was to have lots and lots of birthdays! We were well rewarded too by the panoramas above and below us.  

 All the tourist crowds weren’t just on the beaches and up on top of mountains. The Selarón Steps are a world-famous, vibrant mosaic staircase: 125 metres long and consisting of 215 steps and over 2,000 tiles from more than 60 countries. I want you to close your eyes and concentrate – picture it as if you are there. We were there and you’re probably seeing more of it in your mind’s eye than we did in real life. I enjoyed the thought that we tourists are so daft that we will happily cover up the very thing we came to see by standing on top of it. 

We had the luxury of five days in Rio so were able to see some of the city as well as those tourist hotspots but the most powerful memories we take away are of the stunning physical geography of Rio. And the Big Man himself, of course.