5 Things To Do In Rio de Janeiro On Sunday – Rio de Janeiro is waiting for us with great beaches, trilhas and tipical places that mesmerize us with their beauty and style. we give you here 5 tips for you to make the most of your day and enjoy your holidays to the top!

1.Maracana   2. Recreio    3. Christ the Redeemer   4.Petropolis Imperial      5.Grumari Beach.

1.Maracana.

Who wouldn’t like to visit the biggest stadium in Rio de Janeiro? Maracana is one of the greatest football monuments that Brazil has to offer, so who would miss the opportunity to stop by this amazing arena where many football stars have come around? By taking a tour inside, we can get to know the building large structures as well as its history.

The Jornalista Mario Filho stadium, aka Maracana, have been considered the biggest arena in the world for a long time. It was a FIFA World Cup venue in 1950 as well as in the last World Cup in 2014. In both cases, the finals were played there.

As I mentioned before, the stadium has its own museum. If we take the tour, we will be able to enjoy a delightfull journey inside Maracana, getting to know the locker rooms, the arena Once inside, we start with the tour of fame.

Here we’ll find a wall with thematic panels that tell us the story of the place. In the beggining of our journey, we’ll also find a photographic exposition of football teams. Thers’s a whole wall dedicated to the Botafogo fans, with pictures of the different teams and idols that were part of this club. There’s anothe wall of fame dedicated to important artists that have come to the arena, such as Paul MaCartney, Frank Sinatra, The rolling Stones, and Madonna.

At the end of this tour, we’ll find the players foot prints carved in bronze sheets. Afterwards, we’ll visit the locker rooms and we’ll take the tunnel that leads us to the field. In such tunnel, we’ll find pictures of the current greatest football players in action, a scenary of moving shots of the most important moments in football.

Once in the field, we’ll visit the stands were players’ families and VIPs sit and also the ones were fans gather every weekend.Last, but not least, we’ll get into the actual field, the huge green course where all the magic happens.

 How to get there?

Subway is the best option ever. Once in Maracana station we get out and theres a path outside that leads us directly to the stadium.

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2.Recreio.

If we are looking for nice beaches, we can not leave Recreio aside. It’s a huge beach in the south of Rio that combines peace and paradise together far from the popular beaches. Skip the routine and come visit this place! Recreio is well-known by water sports. People are used to practice surf, body surf, stand up but also sports such as kitesurf, flysurf, windsurf ans bodyboard. It’s the perfect place to take up some or at leats one of these, where you can find great teachers that can help you get acquainted.

The clean and thin sand is what makes this beach so particular. It’s also good to other practice sports as well, many people choose to play frescobolvolei, footbaal, and footbaal-voley among others. The beach extends up to 2 km, from The Biological Reserve of Barra da Tijuca to Serpnambetiba. Its waves can reach the 10 mts of height.

How to get there?

We can take any bus from zona sul which final destinations is Recreio. Those can be 314, 360 and 2329. In case you are downtown, you can take the Metro (subway) up to General Osorio station and the any of the previously mentioned busses. You can either take the bus 315 / 361 from downtown directly to Recreio. It’s a long trip but it’s worth it!

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3. Christ the Redeemer.

The Christ is the point in Rio de Janeiro. Worldwide known, it is the image that you get whenever you talk about Rio. With its arms wide open, it welcomes every person that arrives to the city.

It is considered one of the seven wonders of the world. The Icon of Rio is 38 metres height, situated in a pick of 709 meters of height. We can get to the Christ in different ways. We can either take the bondinho (train), the van, or we can climb up the thrila (path) which is the real deal. Through the thrila we can experience an amazing outdoor traking, enjoying nature and the rewarding feeling of getting to the top by yourself.

If we choose to do the trilha, here are some suggestions: We get to Parque Lage, a huge park close to Jardim Botanico, that belong to the Tijuca National Park. Once we get there, we will find the visual art school (EAV), behind such building we find the beginning of the trilha. The trilha opens itself to nature, full of trees and bushes, and it is easy to run into monkeys all the time.

There is a sign system throughout the path. The red trees indicates the way up and the yellow ones the way down. At first we are going to walk through a heavy forest and then the path turns up and zig zag. We are going to get to a small stream, where we can get a partial view of the Lagoa, Ipanema and Leblon.

Once we pass the first hour of traking, the path starts to get harder up to the point that we may use our hands to climb up. There are some climbing devices to help you get through the difficult parts, so as not to destroy trees by using their branches to go up. Once in the final stage, we come across the track of the bondinho, and we follow them for a while until we come across with the trilha again that will lead us to the entrance.

There we will have to pay a $R35 ticket to get to the master view. If we choose not to do the trilha, we suggest you doing the following: We can take the metro up to Largo do Machado station. If we want to go by van, we can get tickets right outside the metro station. But if we want to go by the bondinho, we have to walk just one block from the station to come across the place where the train leaves. We can visit the Christ from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. everyday.

The cost of the ticket + van/bondinho is around $R60 during high season, and around $R50 in low season. For the eldery the price lowers to the half, and for the minor (from 6 to 11) is $R40. Under six year-old entres for free.

How To Get There?

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4.Petropolis Imperial.

The museo Imperial is the icon of Petropolis. Founded in 1940, it is located in the former residence of Don Pedro II, Palacio Imperial of Petropolis.

The palace was built by Don Pedro I, who was amazed by the hills that surrounded the place. he never got to use the house as an imperial palace, though. His son, Pedro II actually was the one that made this dream come true, after he inherited the house. The museum is strictly related to the monarchical period of Brazil.

A great deal of the decoratoins have been preserved since that time, that’s why it allows the visitors to travel in time back to that era, to see life as the emperor used to see it, to enjoy his fine arts, personal objetcs and to see his crown and his son’s.

The palace has a neoclasic style, 44 rooms, 2 wings and a central area. It has an uper floor with a big dinning room, a ball room, a throne room, the imperial bedroom and the King’s office. The yard was arranged by Jeran Baptiste Binto, a french botanist and landscapist. In the museum we can find sculptures, books, newspapers, sacre art, ancient documents, murals, jewelry, porcelain, accesories, clothings, and chivalry suits as well. We can also find old files, a gigantic library, a movie theatre, a theatre and a multi-purpose room.

The museum also has a collection of more than 250 handwritten documents, cartographic and iconographic texts from the XIII century up to the XX century. One fo the most interesting items is a photografic collection of the history of the urban features and landscapes of the state of Rio de Janeiro and the city of Petropolis.

How to get there?

We have to take the metro to Carioca station, there we take the 344 bus towards praca XV. There we get to the Marechal Aguinaldo Caiado de Castro avenue, where we’ll walk for about 2 min to the bus stop.There we take any bus towards Castelo. Once the trip is over, we take a cab to the museum.

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5.Grumari Beach.

It is considered a conservation area since 1987, and it keeps up with its natural aspect with a lot of green areas and cristal clear water. It is one of the most beautiful beaches of Rio and it is located after Macumba beach, and separated from that by a morro. It is 4 km long. It is on the west part of the city, Barra de Tijuca region, around 20 km from the Barra neighbourhood.

As I mentioned, Grumari is one of the best beaches in Rio, that kind people don’t know about it, that’s why its main characteristic is its calmness and tranquility. There’s a nudist part of the beach, in which we can lay daown calm and alone… really nice place to goand enjoy your body!

Grumari Beach is well known by its great waves, we are prone to find surfist from all over Rio. We need to be very careful if we want to practice because during the week there are no lifeguards to help us and waves can become a real danger from then on.

How to get there?

The best way to get there is by taking the Metro up to central station. Inside the station, we will find trains that will take us to Madureira. Once there, it is better if we take a cab directly to the beach, cause it is a long way if we decide to go on foot.