Saturday 30 January

Rio de Janeiro

We woke to a bright sunny cloudless sky.  Pity yesterday wasn’t like today.

typical tree-lined street in Rio

favellas in Rio

A free choice day, so we went up the mountains behind Rio to visit the city of Petropolis, with 12 others. As two Scenic groups have been travelling together since Lima, Peru, the free choice groups are combined to make up enough people to warrant a guide and bus. Petropolis is where the royal family live now, and where they set up their empire in the 1800s. Brazil was a colony of Portugal, and some members of the Royal Family sailed here in the 1800s to make it part of the Portuguese empire. We visited the home of the family as it was then – they had to leave Brazil and return to Portugal, leaving everything behind. The house (small palace) is lovely, and had some beautiful things in it, including the two crowns – one of gold, diamonds (big) and pearls. Some of the jewellery was away for cleaning, in preparation for the Olympics.

on the way to Petropolis, stall selling rag rugs

Petropolis town hall

royal family's residence, now a museum

lovely old house, now a rehab centre

We walked to the cathedral, obviously ready for a wedding this evening, and then to look at the small ‘crystal palace’, an opulent greenhouse Princess Isabela’s husband gave her for her orchids. Members of the royal family still live in Petropolis but have no particular status other than being higher class perhaps.

Petropolis is between 900 and 1000m in altitude and was very pleasant compared to the hot 36 degrees at Copacabana Beach which was packed along the water’s edge, but empty for the first 100m from the promenade.

After arriving back at the hotel, at around 2.30pm (and feeling better), we took a stroll along the road to a flea market then continued around the block, back to the hotel. Tonight was a fancy Scenic dinner, with lovely courses. We didn’t eat entrée but did have mains and dessert. Afterwards we walked with some others along to a market where another couple bought items for their grandchildren.

Today we had to fill out an “Ebola” questionnaire for the Antarctic cruise ship and hand in tonight at dinner. We have all been reading about the “Zika” virus which is spreading across South America, having arrived from Polynesia in 2014 during the World Cup. Although there is no direct link between this mosquito-carried virus and deformed babies, the number of babies with the deformation has dramatically increased since 2014.