Rio's Centro

The bits of Rio that make the postcards are in the southern part, the Zona Sul – Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, the Christ statue and Sugar Loaf Mountain. The main part of the city stretches for miles into the north, with a port, financial and business district, poor houses and so many shanty town favelas.

Walking into a central park

The weather was overcast and gloomy on our second day in Rio so we decided to head for buildings rather than beaches. The centre is deserted at the weekends but bustling during the week with business people, street vendors and narrow streets packed with cheap shops mainly selling jeans, jogging bottoms and lycra tops.The Petrobras building

Particularly notable in the centre is the Petrobras (Brazil’s oil company) building, reminiscent of a rubix cube, and directly opposite it, the pyramidal Metropolitan Cathedral. The latter is a fascinating building that looks very modern and industrial from the outside, formed from gloomy concrete, but creates an incredible impact from within where four huge colourful stained glass windows lead your eye to a great cross-shaped skylight high above.

From here we wandered into a seedier but interesting part of town, Lapa, which is fun on a Friday night for dancing in the street to music blaring from car boots whilst drinking beers sold from bins filled with ice, and for going to packed bars full of dancing couples and cross-dressers. Anyhow, there is none of this in the day but there is the impressive, shabby, tall arches of the tramway which winds its way up to the arty hillside area of Santa Teresa.

Near to this are lots of steps, the Escaderia Selaron, which lead up to the working class housing district in Santa Teresa. In 1990 Chilean artist Jorge Selaron decided to decorate the steps with colourful tiles. 19 years on, he is continuing to add to the mosaic with tiles from around the world. It’s an inspired and beautiful piece of art which really lifts the feel of the area, captures the colour and life of the communities, and is a big tourist attraction.

We were quite pleased for the clouds in the end as this whole area would have been easy to overlook in blazing sunshine in favour of more time on Rio’s beaches, but it actually has lots to see and a very different feel to the Zona Sul. Old and newer buildings in the centre with the Metropolitan Cathedral in view behind the glass towerblock.