The reopening of the Christ the Redeemer sinbolizes the reopening of the tourism in Rio de Janeiro!

After 5 months closed due the Coronavirus crises the Corcovado Mountain is again receiving tourists. A few rules must be followed in order to keep people safe. Here they are:

1. All the visitors must wear masks
2. Minimum distance of 2 metres between people
3. Visitors can’t no longer lay down on the flor to take better pictures of the open-armed Christ

Same rulles will apply to the Sugarloaf, which is also reopening today.

Rio de Janeiro city council is about to let people know weather we are going to have Carnival in 2021 or not. Plans at the moment are to pospone the biggest party in Brazil’s calendar. You will have to wait a bit longer to find out more. Will keep you posted!

Are you from Canada, Japan, Australia or US?

Good news for some countries. Do you need a visa to visit Brazil?

Yes, that’s great news but only if you are coming from Japan, United States, Australia or Canada.

A difficult visa to get – Brazilian Visa

Historicaly Brazil is a country that made difficult for Americans to get a visa. Visas were both complicated and expensive. And you have to go to a consulate to get it. This was made easier with eletronic visas for US citizens. From early 2018 was costing no longer US$ 160 but US$ 40 to obtain a tourist visa to visit Brazil.

This was just an example. All t he other countries mentioned above were under the reciprocity program. If a Brazilian needs a visit to visit Japan, a Japanese would have to go through a similar process to get his visa as well.

Bolsonaro talks to Trump

Our president, Jair Bolsonaro, during a meeting with US president Trump in January promissed to eliminate visa requirements to these countries. He’s hooping t o boost the country’s  tourism sector and get closer to the US at the same time.

Therefore as of June 17, 2019, Brazil will eliminate the tourist visa requirements from the  US, Japan, Australia and Canada.

Brazil gets about 7 million tourists a year, and by 2022 we are hopping to double this amount to about 14 million tourists annualy.

And for me, as a tour operator, these news in Brazil’s foreing policy in regards to tourism couldn’t come soon enough.

Do I need a visa?

If you wish to know if you need a tourist visa to vist Brazil, please visit this site.

Brazil’s biggest party is on!

Carnaval (or Carnival in English) in Brazil started yesterday, but in some states (specialy up North) it’s been going on already for a few days. Did you know that the official holiday is only 1 day? Yes, it is on Tuesdays. But brazilians start the celebrations on the Friday before.

Going on holliday

Because most of the people start the celebrations on Fridays they have 4 days off. Therefore it is great if you manage to take not only these days off but also the entire week!  And that’s what we see in most small businesses around the country: you are not going to work from Saturday (second of March) till the 10th of March. Sounds great, right? That’s how it is the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro!

Samba schools competition

The main competition among the samba schools start tonight. And the top 5 will parade again on Sunday, 10th March.

Rio weather today during our tour.

During our city tour in Rio today we had some fast changes in the weather. Specialy when we were visiting Corcovado.

We had a lovely couple from the country side of São Paulo and started our tour from their cruise ship. It was a quick stop before heading to Salvador (Northeast of Brazil).

Because most of the tourists visit the Corcovado Mountain first (where Christ the Redeemer is located) we start our tour visiting the Sugarloaf. See below how beautiful the day was. People where even rock climbing at the mountain!

Then we always make a stop at the Leblon’s lookout point for pictures. It is a great spot because we get to see the 3 most beautiful and well known beaches in Rio: Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana.

By the time we were going to visit Corcovado, the weather started changing…We were already on the train which take us to the top of the mountain. As you can see in our main page , we never take the vans to go up.

When we got up there here how it looked like:

Corcovado as its best!

We had then a coffee break also to wait a bit to see if we would have any change, any improvement at all.

And then, magic happened!

You can check the weather forecast in Rio here.

Summer starts today in Rio de Janeiro, 21st December 2018.

It’s not always that we receive a note after a tour you’ve made. This note was left by a lovely couple from the United States. We’ve spent 2 days together touring Rio de Janeiro on a private tour. On the first day we’ve visited Petrópolis and on the second, a tour in Rio de Janeiro, where the main attraction was Christ the Redeemer.

Hope you can read it clearely:

Elections in Brazil will be over next Sunday, 28th October.

Former army captain Jair Bolsonaro and Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad advanced from the first round vote and will face off in the October 28th runoff.

Bolsonaro is well ahead on the polls and should win the elections to become Brazil’s next president. People are tired of the old politics and are choosing new faces to lead them.

Elections in Rio de Janeiro

Rio will also have 2 candidates fighting each other to become the next governor: Eduardo Paes and Wilson Witzel. The second one is leading the polls and should win.

One of the biggest problems in Bazil (and in Rio) is security for its people. Violence is growing in many areas and this is the main reason why these 2 candidates will most probably win the elections. Both have clear programs to combat violence head on in the favelas and in the poorest areas in the country. Let’s wait and see what happens…

The most iconic hotel in Rio is the Copacabana Palace!

Are you coming to Rio de Janeiro and have never heard of this fantastic hotel? It is fine. People usualy book their accommodation and tours in the city and don’t pay much attention to the hotel.

Once in Rio, doing a city tour or visiting the Christ or the Sugarloaf you will certainly come across to the ‘Copa’. That’s how we from Rio, call the neighborhood and the hotel itself.

The hotel has received in its premisses queens, kings and several movie stars like Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Frank Sinatra.

It is among the first buildings located in Copacabana Beach, dated from the early 1920’s.

Here you see a couple of pictures of the hotel:

Woul you like to know more about the hotel?