Rio... City of God

Rio Cidade de Deus... Garota de Ipanema... With these two Caetano Veloso songs I begin the description of my trip... the most beautiful of my young life... Let me start by saying that my girlfriend is Brazilian, from Rio, and that I was lucky enough to stay for free in her apartment at Largo do Machado, in the Leblon area. After an endless flight Malpensa/Paris/Rio I get off the 747 at Rio's international airport and there begins a long series of federal police checks... not knowing a word of Portuguese I found myself in difficulty at the counter, but the kindness of the Brazilians soon showed itself before my eyes... once through the various checks I finally see the doors leading outside this immense airport... I count to three... take a breath and walk through them... The emotion is overwhelming... it's 07:30 in the morning but outside it's already teeming with life...

the air is made unbreathable around the airport given the number of alcohol-powered taxis... we take a taxi towards Leblon. I've been in Brazil for 20 minutes and my first impression crossing the port and downtown area is that I've arrived at the navel of the world... millions, even billions of houses, cars, horns, favelas stretch as far as the eye can see... and I think... "where have I ended up?" after about an hour I finally reach the "VIP" area of Rio and things change... immense streets (avenidas), very tall buildings, hotels, everything is perfect, I feel like I'm in California but the micro-bikinis make me understand that this is my city!!!!! first stop after dropping the bags off at home... Leblon beach with my friend Tochi!!!! a fabulous day drinking cerveja gelada by the ocean, all framed by Sugarloaf Mountain.....

evening in bed to shake off the jet lag...(I'm a bit fuzzy too, given all the beers I drank) (...but beer there is like water for us) second day.. my girlfriend takes me around Rio... guys, experiencing Brazil as a NON-TOURIST is an incredible thing... the taxis, the buses, the metro, the colours, the smells, but above all the flavours you taste outside the tourist circuits are something to be experienced...(easy to say when your girlfriend lived there for 10 years, right?...:)) a quick tour of the beaches... and then the thing women love most... unbridled shopping at the Rio Sul mega-mega shopping centre outside Lagoa... evening of picanha (SPECTACULAR!!!!) and then seeing PLATAFORMA (carnival as theatre). the nights in Rio never end but it's better to be careful where you go because even on Copacabana the children of the favelas are always lurking....

I won't go on day by day because over more than a month I'd need 10000 gigabytes of space to write.... ABSOLUTELY WORTH SEEING: Corcovado... you'd stand there for hours watching how small you are compared to the Rio skyline... I prayed beneath the Christ! Pao de Acucar... another spectacular tourist attraction with an adjoining zoo on top of the second mountain. Various beaches... all to be savoured.. don't skip Barra da Tijuca, an 18km-long strip of sand!!! you can even see it from satellite!!! Santa Maria, Rio downtown, the metropolitan forest are beautiful but only if you can spare a day each... the Rio Sul shopping centre.... grand and at very low prices! The Maracana stadium... amazing, the entrance with the footprints of the Brazilian champions.. the temple of football!!!! in the country of football!!!! absolutely worth seeing.. the tunnel leading to the pitch is thrilling...

the GIANTS of football passed through there... beautiful! Eating at Gambino, pizza, and at a comida a kilo or in a churrascaria! I'm certainly leaving out many things but I repeat, a month in Brazil changes your life!!! I knew nothing about Brazil....now I know Portuguese... I can dance samba and I'm specialising in Brazilian cuisine.. my trip ended with a quick visit to the state of S.Paolo, in a little farming town... but that's another story.... to everyone, enjoy Brazil!!!!