Central Rio de Janeiro and Lapa

Hot and sweaty central Rio spreads back from Guanabara Bay in a jumbled grid of streets between Santos Dumont airport and the Jesuit Mosteiro São Bento. It dates from 1567, but much of its architectural heritage has been laid waste by successive waves of government intent on wiping out the past in favour of dubious and grandiose visions of Order and Progress. Nevertheless it remains the centre of Rio's history as well as the city, with some distinguished colonial buildings, Manueline follies and elaborate neoclassical facades huddled together under totalitarian blocks of flats and Le Corbusier-inspired concrete. It can all feel a bit hectic and bewildering. But don't give up. There is plenty to explore here and a wealth of air-conditioned havens in which to escape for respite and a coffee.

The greatest concentration of historic buildings is in the south of the centre, near Santos Dumont airport and around

Praça 15 de Novembro

, from where Rio de Janeiro grew in its earliest days. Here you'll find most of the museums, some of the city's more beautiful little churches and colonial buildings such as the

Paço Imperial

and the

Palácio Tiradentes

. More colonial buildings lie at the centre's northern extremity around the Morro de São Bento. These include the finest baroque building in Rio, the

Mosteiro de São Bento

, and the city's most imposing church,

Nossa Senhora da Candelária

Praça 15 de Novembro and the imperial palaces

The Praça 15 de Novembro (often called Praça Quinze) has always been one of the focal points in Rio de Janeiro. Today it has one of the greatest concentrations of historic buildings in the city. The area is well illuminated and clean and the municipality has started to stage shows, music and dancing in the

praça

. At weekends an antiques, crafts, stamp and coin fair (Feirarte II) is held here. The rather modest colonial former royal palace,

Paço Imperial

, www.pacoimperial.com.br, is one of the centre's landmarks. It was built in 1743 as the residence of the governor of the Capitania and was made into the royal palace when the Portuguese court moved to Brazil. After independence it became the imperial palace. There's often something interesting on display here, and two decent air-conditioned café-restaurants provide respite from the heat.

Beside the Paço Imperial, across Rua da Assembléia, is the grand neoclassical

Palácio Tiradentes

. It was named in honour of the former dentist (

tiradentes

means teeth puller), Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, who is often seen as the symbolic father of Brazilian independence, and who was held prisoner here and executed nearby. The building itself was constructed between 1922 and 1926 and is now the state legislative assembly. A

statue of Tiradentes

by Francisco de Andrade stands in front.

Largo da Misericórdia and the museums

There is a cluster of interesting little museums south of Praça XV on the way to Santos Dumont airport that can be reached by the Largo da Misericórdia. This hill was once crowned by a magnificent monastery and fort that watched out over the bay. Nearby in a series of handsome buildings, is the

Museu Histórico Nacional,

www.museuhitoriconacional.com.br

. This is one of the city's more distinguished museums, with

a collection of magnificent carriages, historical treasures, colonial sculpture and furniture,

maps, paintings, arms and armour, silver and porcelain. The

Museu da Imagem e do Som

(

MIS

www.mis.rj.gov.br,

houses a collection of cinema images, photos of Rio and of Carioca musicians, and recordings of popular music including early

choro

by artists including Jacob do Bandolim. There are booths for listening to music and a small cinema for watching the 16 mm and 35 mm film archive.

Travessa do Comércio and the Carmelite churches

North of Praça XV, the

Travessa do Comércio

is reached via the

Arco do Teles

directly across from the palace. The arch is all that remains of an 18th-century construction, now incorporated into a modern building, and the two streets give an idea of how most of Rio must have looked in the 19th century. Little bars and restaurants line the streets and are very lively after 1800. There are also some interesting bookshops and one of Brazil's prettiest little baroque churches,

Nossa Senhora da Lapa dos Mercadores

. This began life as a street oratory erected in a blind alley by market vendors who traditionally petitioned Our Lady of Lapa for help in hard times; it became a church in 1750, was remodelled in 1869-1872 and has now been fully restored.

The busy thoroughfare of Rua 1 de Março cuts across the top of Praça XV and Rua Ouvidor and is littered with Carmelite churches, all of them worth a quick look. The most famous is at the northwestern corner of the

praça

Nossa Senhora do Carmo da Antiga Sé

, has one of the finest baroque interiors in Rio and occupies the site of the original founding Carmelite chapel. The crypt allegedly holds the remains of Pedro Alvares Cabral, the European discoverer of Brazil; a claim disputed by the town of Santarém in Portugal. Just north of this church and right in front of the end of Rua Ouvidor is the

Igreja da

Ordem Terceira do Monte do Carmo

. It has strikingly beautiful portals by Mestre Valentim, the son of a Portuguese nobleman and a slave girl. He also created the main altar of fine moulded silver, the throne and its chair and much else.

Candelária and around

Rio's most imposing church lies on an island in a sea of traffic some 500 m north of Praça XV. The mock-Italianate

Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Candelária

, has long been the church of 'society Rio'. Celebrities still gather here in the marble interior for the city's most prestigious weddings. The tiles in the dome are from Lisbon, the marble inside is Veronan and the heavy bronze doors were commissioned from France. All were shipped across at vast expense in the late 18th century, during an era when even though such materials were readily available in Brazil at similar quality and far lower prices, snob value demanded that they be imported.

There are a number of cultural centres near the church. The

Centro Cultural Correios

, www.correios.com.br,

in a smart early 20th-century building with a little private park, is a good stop for an air-conditioned juice or coffee. Just

opposite, with entrances on Avenida Presidente Vargas and Rua 1 de Março 66, is the

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil

(

CCBB

), www.bb.com.br/ cultura, in a fine early 19th-century neoclassical building with a

beautiful glass domed roof. The centre hosts many of the city's large and distinguished art shows. It also has an arts cinema, library, multimedia facilities and lunchtime concerts. The newest of the cultural centres near Candelária is the

Espaço Cultural da Marinha

, www.sdm.mar.mil.br/espaco.htm.

This former naval establishment, built on a jetty over the bay, now contains museums of underwater archaeology and navigation.The museum is very popular with Brazilian children and is crowded at weekends.

Mosteiro de São Bento

The

Praça Mauá

, which lies north of Avenida Presidente Vargas, marks the end of Centro and the beginning of the port zone. Many of the empty warehouses here are used as workshops by the samba schools for the construction of their beautiful carnival floats. The area would be unremarkable were it not for the

Mosteiro de São Bento

, www.osb.org.br, modest dress, no shorts;

whose sober Brazilian baroque façade sits on a promontory looking out over the bay. It is widely publicized as a World Heritage Site, which it is not. But of all the city's colonial buildings this is the most worth visiting, both for its magnificent interior and for its significance as the most important Benedictine monument outside Europe.

It preserves a lavish gilt baroque interior but is very poorly lit. However, in the gloom it is possible to make out that not an inch remains unadorned. The painting is as wonderful as the carving; particularly the panels in the Blessed Sacrament chapel by Inácio Ferreira Pinto and

O Salvador

, the masterpiece of Brazil's first painter, Frei Ricardo do Pilar, which hangs in the sacristy. .

São Bento can be reached either by a narrow road from Rua Dom Gerardo 68, or by a lift whose entrance is at Rua Dom Gerardo 40. Both routes lead to a

praça

with tall trees, but arriving in the lift is more magical as you are whisked from the heat and bustle of the dock area to an oasis of calm, which sets the mood beautifully for a wander around the monastery buildings. Every Sunday there is a Latin Mass with plainsong. Arrive an hour early to get a seat. On other days, Mass is at 0715 and the monks often sing at vespers.

Largo da Carioca and around

There is a variety of interesting sights here within a very small area. The

Convento de Santo Antônio

, the second oldest in Rio, sits on a little hill off the Largo da Carioca. You will often see single women here gathered to pray: there are many more women than men in Brazil and St Anthony is traditionally a provider of husbands. Many members of the Brazilian imperial family are buried in the mausoleum.

A couple of streets north, at the end of Rua do Ouvidor and dominating the square that bears its name, is the twin-towered

Igreja de São Francisco de Paula

, with some fine examples of Carioca art. Across the Largo de São Francisco and on the corner of Rua Uruguaiana 77 and Ouvidor is the

Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário e São Benedito dos Pretos

. Since the 17th century this church has been at the centre of African Christian culture in Rio. During the 19th century it was the site of an elaborate festival that recreated scenes from the courtly life of the king of Congo. A king and queen were crowned and they danced through the nearby streets followed by long parades of

courtiers in fancy dress; a precursor perhaps for Carnaval. It was here that the announcements for the final abolition of slavery were prepared. Next to the church is a small museum devoted to slavery in Brazil, whose collection of instruments of subjugation speaks starkly of life for black people in the last Western country to abolish the slave trade.

The

Real Gabinete Português de Leitura

, www.realgabinete.com.br,

sits just to the north of Largo São Francisco de Paula on Rua Luís de Camões. This is one of the city's hidden architectural treasures and one of the best pieces of mock-Manueline architecture in Brazil. Manueline architecture is usually described as Portuguese Gothic and takes its name from King Manuel I who ruled Portugal between 1495 and 1521. It is unlike any other European Gothic style, drawing strongly on Islamic and nautical themes - a lavish fusion of Islamic ornamentalism and sculpted seaweeds, anchors, ropes and corals. Towering arches decorated with Islamic flourish ascend via coiled wooden ropes to an elaborate painted ceiling with skylights from which a massive iron chandelier is suspended. The magnificent belle époque coffee house,

Confeitaria Colombo

, is a short walk to the east, at Rua Gonçalves Dias 32 .

Praça Tiradentes and the cathedral

One long block behind the Largo da Carioca and São Francisco de Paula is the old and shady

Praça Tiradentes

. The

Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião

, www.catedral.com.br, lies just south of the Praça Tiradentes and the Largo da Carioca. It is an oblate concrete cone fronted by a decorative ladder and replete with rich blue stained glass, which looks like a modernist Mayan temple. The design could be mistaken for a Niemeyer, but is in fact by another Brazilian Le Corbusier disciple, Edgar de Oliveira da Fonseca, with heavy modernist statues and panels by Humberto Cozzi. It's best to visit in the late afternoon when the sunlight streams through the immense monotone stained-glass windows.

One of the city's quirkier museums lies only a short walk from the cathedral. The

Museu de Farmácia Antônio Lago

www.abf.org.br/museu.html, i

s a reproduction of a 17th-century Brazilian apothecary's shop, complete with Dr Jekyll

cabinets and rows of dubious-looking herbal preparations in glass and porcelain vessels.

Cinelândia and Avenida Rio Branco

The area around Praça Floriano was the liveliest part of the city in the 1920s and 1930s when Hollywood hit Brazil. All of the best cinemas were situated here and their popularity became so great that the

praça

was named after them. Today

Cinelândia

remains lively, especially at the end of the week, owing to its proximity to the city's nightlife capital, Lapa. The 30-m-wide

Avenida Rio Branco

, which bisects Cinelândia, is the financial heart of the city. Although it has seen better days, the

Theatro Municipal

, www.theatromunicipal.rj.gov.br, remains a splendid piece of French-inspired, lavish neoclassical pomp. The tour is worth it to see front of house and backstage, the decorations and the machine rooms - a luxuriously ornate temple to an early 20th- century Carioca high society. The theatre was designed by Francisco de Oliveira Passos, son of the contemporaneous city mayor, who won an ostensibly open architectural competition together with French architect Albert Guilbert.

Opposite, on the other side of Avenida Rio Branco, is the newly refurbished

Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes

www.mnba.org.brFine art in Rio and in Brazil was, as a whole, stimulated by the arrival in 1808 of the Portuguese royal family. In 1816 the Academia de Belas-Artes was founded by another Frenchman, Joaquim Lebreton. This building was constructed 1906-1908 to house the national gallery and contains the best collection of art in the country. Another gallery contains further works by foreign artists and the temporary exhibition hall houses many of Rio de Janeiro's most important international exhibitions.

Another of Cinelândia's stately neoclassical buildings is the

Biblioteca Nacional

, an eclectic Carioca construction, this time with a touch of art nouveau. The library is fronted by a stately engaged portico supported by a Corinthian colonnade. Inside is a series of monumental staircases in Carrara marble. The stained glass in the windows is French. Today the library houses more than nine million items, including a first edition of the

Lusiad of Camões

, a 15th-century Moguncia Bible and Book of Hours, paintings donated by Pedro II, scores by Mozart and etchings by Dürer.

Nearby, in the former Ministry of Education and Health building, is the

Palácio Gustavo Capanema

. Dating back to 1937-1945, it was the first piece of modernist architecture in the Americas. Inside are impressive murals by Cândido Portinari, one of Brazil's most famous artists, as well as works by other well-known names.

Lapa

Only a decade ago Lapa, which lies just south of the cathedral on the edge of Cinelândia, was a no-go area; tawdry and terrifying, walked only by prostitutes, thugs and drug addicts chasing the dragon in the crumbling porticoes of the colonial and art nouveau buildings. The area can still feel a little

edgy, especially on weekdays after dark. But it has undergone an unimagined renaissance. This was once the Montmartre of Rio; now the cafés are alive once more, spilling out onto the streets, and the ballrooms and town houses throb with samba and electronica. Opera is once more performed in the concert halls of the Escola de Música, and the area's once notorious thoroughfare, Rua do Lavradio, is now lined with smart little restaurants and clubs, playing host to one of the city's most interesting bric-a-brac and antiques markets on Saturdays.

Street performers often gather in the cobbled square between the

arcos

and the cathedral. There are a number of moderately interesting buildings off this square. The eclectic baroque/neoclassical

Escola da Musica da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

, has one of the city's best concert halls. A stroll away is the bizarre baroque façade of another prestigious classical concert hall, the

Sala Cecília Mereilles

. More picturesque are the mosaic-tiled

Ladeira do Santa Teresa

stairs, which wind their way steeply from the square and from the back of Rua Teotônio to Santa Teresa. These are much beloved of music video directors and fashion photographers who use them as a backdrop to carefully produced gritty urban scenes. The steps are tiled in red, gold and green and bordered by little houses, many of which are dishevelled and disreputable but wonderfully picturesque. Be vigilant here.

Gamboa, Cidade Nova and the Sambódromo

In the early 20th century, after the Paraguayan war and the abolition of slavery but before the warehouses were built in

Gamboa

, this northern dockland area was known as 'Little Africa' due to the high number of resident Bahian immigrants. With them, the African-Bahian rhythms of the

candomblé

religion were introduced into the Carioca community and the next generation spawned a host of famous local musicians that included Donga, Chico da Baiana and João de Baiana.

In 2008 the city government inaugurated a theme park,

Cidade de Samba

(

Samba City

), www.cidadedosambarj.com.br, to celebrate samba and bring the administrative and production centre of a number of the larger schools together in one location. Schools from the

Liga Independente das Escolas de Samba

(

LIESA

) now have a permanent carnival production centre of 14 workshops, each of them housed in a two-storey building. Visitors can watch floats and costumes being prepared or watch one of the year-round carnival-themed shows.

Carnaval itself is centred closed to Gamboa in the

Cidade Nova

. Oscar Niemeyer's 650-m stadium street, the

Sambódromo

was purpose-built for the annual parades.

This is edited copy from Footprint Handbooks. For comprehensive details (incl address, tel no, directions, opening times and prices) please refer to book or individual chapter PDF

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