Rio de Janeiro
Country: Brazil
Population: 6 million
Language: Portuguese and English
Weather: the entire year is sunny with blue sky. It is never cold .


Mansions on the cliffs

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Golf courses and swimming pools around the residential towers, facing the beach

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Residential complexes, served with swimming pools and tennis courts

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Suburbs

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More golf courses , this time around the mansions

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The highrises of Barra Beach, in Rio´s west areas. Mostly luxurious residentials.

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Road along the rocks

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Residential buildings along the shore. Each apartment occupies an entire floor, having 5 bedrooms and 3 living rooms. The left building is all covered in white marble, and the building in the right is in brown granite.

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Sheraton Rio , Barra Beach

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Barra Beach

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Reserve Beach

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Playing volleyball in the beach

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Mountains , tropical rainforest, beaches and the city

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Saint Conrad Beach

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The Copacabana Palace Hotel

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A bridge

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Ipanema Beach . Remember that song, " the girl from Ipanema" ? Was made here.

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Simonsen Corporate Park

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Downtown

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Thank you for the beautiful pic's. In june I am going to Rio and I can't wait to go there.

Isn't Rio a slum behind the beach? I might get one of those mansions in the hills or a flat in those sheraton towers.

Slum or not, that area is amazing. it reminds me of surfers but looks a bit better by contrast because of the mountains in the background, and the nice architecture.

I'd go there for a holiday but i'd never live anywhere else: other than Australia ;D.

Stunning.

Isn't Rio a slum behind the beach? I might get one of those mansions in the hills or a flat in those sheraton towers.


Well , I guess you can´t call those mansions in the cliffs a slum , can you?


In fact, the rich areas of Rio have much higher standards of living than most european countries.

I don´t think someone would live in places like these in England or France...

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Well , I prefer living in those "slums" above, than in the tiny and old flats of Europe.

If I ever get to Rio I'll be staying at the Little Slum Inn up in the barrio with the real folks of Rio. Read below!

"Little Slum Inn" offers priceless views (Rio Realism or Hostile Hostel to rent)
Reuters | Fri Mar 3, 2006pm ET | By Terry Wade

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Breathtaking views high above Rio de Janeiro's beaches and mountains can be yours for just a few dollars a day -- if you skip pricey hotels and sleep in a slum.

Rio's slums, or favelas, are infamous for drug and gang violence. But a new hostel called "The Little Slum Inn" is attracting adventurous tourists, mainly from Germany, France and the United States, who dare to live amid the grit and poverty.

"This place isn't for wimps. If you are uptight, you can go stay at the Copacabana Palace," said co-owner and shantytown dweller Andreia Martins, 31, referring to the luxury beachfront hotel where the Rolling Stones stayed last month when they played a free concert for more than 1 million people.

You can only get to the jungle-covered hillside slum of Pereira da Silva on foot. Most of its 1,900 residents live in unpainted brick hovels they built themselves on irregular lots.

But the hostel owners say staying in the slum is safe. It has buried its violent past and gained a reputation as one of Rio's calmest favelas since police killed a neighborhood drug lord in a shootout seven years ago. A police squad also trains there, so gangs avoid the slum.

Residents of most of Rio's 600 shantytowns are not so lucky. Thugs employed by drug traffickers walk narrow streets with AK-47 assault rifles on their shoulders. Bloody clashes with police and rival gangs are common. Slum dwellers who work long hours for low pay as maids or gas station attendants then have to come home to a slum where they risk getting caught in gunfights.

Martins' clients at the Pousada Favelinha, as it is called in Portuguese, are tourists who pride themselves on avoiding glitzy tourist haunts and traveling off the beaten path to remote places like Laos and Cambodia.

Each room in the white, three-story inn has expansive terraces overlooking Rio's bay and cozy furnishings.

The tiny hostel's five rooms were booked solid during Rio's famous Carnival this week, even though the inn has no telephone and only accepts reservation requests by e-mail.

"I've had to turn people away," she said.

A room with a double bed costs about $35 a night. It costs $15 a head to sleep in a large room for single backpackers.

Her neighbors like the inn because it brings money into the community. Martins is working with the community association to set up a free health clinic staffed by visiting foreign doctors.

She employs two residents from the slum to run errands and clean and refers guests who like lots of beer to bars at the base of the hillside community. Martins says she is making decent money but complains of long hours.

"I still have to cook, clean and wash clothes. I'm not living the life of a rich lady yet."

The best little hostel I ever came across was in Santiago, Chile where you stay as a guest in the local prison with one of the inmates. Women are allowed to stay with their partners which is far more sensible than the "Fag Factory" that Anglo-Saxon prisons breed.

Would I live in Rio?

I would like too but I have a serious problem with countries that cannot look after its poor.There are major inequality issues there.Issues you cannot just run and hide from.

For a few weeks a year i think. To many places to live so spread it around.

Rio has the ultimate natural location. Absolutely spectacular.
Certainly cant fault the climate and setting.

Rio de Janeiro - Perfect one day, Perfect the next! Best city in the world!

You have truly a fantastic city in an amazing country - much better than Australia that's for sure =)

[disclaimer: I am Australian]

In a heartbeat.

For a holiday? Yes
To live? No

It does look very good in the pictures, I would love to go there. I do agree a bit with the comments above about the inequalities in Rio, whilst it's great to have so many bueatiful rich areas, living next door to some of the worst slums must be a bit of a downer on the place. There has to be some serios social problems in Brazil to let things get like that, and it also pretty well known for crime, which is a shame.

Nice looking city, I would like to visit, but atm its not really a priority.
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Girls arent to bad either :)

Rio is the most beautiful city in the world. No doubt about that.

Had it been conquered by the British it would have been the best place to live!

lol

Rio sits in the most beautiful natural setting in the world, I think surpassing Vancouver, but the high crime and murder rate make it very unnerving to live there.
I'd rather be in a less attractive city with more personal safety.

Yes - if I had the money to go with it!!!

I loved it when I was there - no other city I've been to that can come close for natural beauty and setting.

One of those MUST SEE to believe it type places.

Great pics. I'd definitely visit.. I don't know if I'd live there.

i saw a documentary of the slums right behind the city, good work brazilian government, good to see you keeping unemployment & poverty low, very nice

Rio is the most beautiful city in the world. No doubt about that.

Had it been conquered by the British it would have been the best place to live!


Cape Town was conquered by the British and it´s not in any terms more developed than Rio. :)

How do you explain that?

I honestly think Rio has the best setting in the world, but don't all the mountains make the city feel very disected and far apart?