A perfect break in Rio, South America’s great party city

Inimitable, irresistible, idiosyncratic: Rio de Janeiro is one of South America’s most superlative inventions. It was supplanted by Brasilia as Brazil’s capital in 1960, surpassed by São Paulo as economic powerhouse around the same time. Yet Rio needs neither titles nor statistics to outshine both. Nature has been benevolent to this patch of the Atlantic coast, daubing it with rainforest, decorating it with dramatic hills and dropping a lagoon in the middle – surrounded by the continent’s most expensive real estate and finished off with the most beguiling stretches of urban beach on the planet – Ipanema, Copacabana, Arpoador and Leblon.

Rio captured the world’s notice in the Twenties, with the opening of the Copacabana Palace – but its golden age never quite ended. Hollywood, royalty and rock stars have continued to fly down to the city to lounge around the pool, ride up to Sugar Loaf, hop in a chopper to see the towering Christ statue, dance samba at Carnival, and pose and play on the golden strands. Stereotypes abound, but they’re pretty good ones – and if you want to dig deeper, the city has art, music and culinary scenes to rival any in the Americas.

• How to spend your weekend
• Insider tips
• When should I visit Rio de Janeiro?
• Where to stay in Rio de Janeiro
• How to get there and how to get around
• What to bring home
• Essential information: what to know before you go

Start the day with a walk on the seafront. Any area will do – it all depends on your hotel choice – but Copacabana to Ipanema never disappoints. Somehow walking along the former’s famous swirl-patterned pavement – designed by Roberto Burle Marx – feels more than just a stroll.

Before the sun gets too strong, the beaches get busy with surfing schools, gym workouts (feel free to use the exercise stations), pre-work football matches, altinha games (keeping the ball in the air), joggers, yoga groups, tai chi, you name it. It takes about an hour to walk from the Copacabana Palace to Ipanema. Note the Postos as you go; these are 12 numbered lifeguard stations but also “scenes”; postos 8 is LGBTQ, 9 is young, 10 is affluent. Between Postos 7 and 8 is a bronze statue of the guitar-toting Tom Jobim, composer of the music for the bossa nova classic The Girl from Ipanema. Keep an eye out for Rua Vinícius de Moraes, the street honouring the song’s lyricist.

Go a couple of blocks inland for a mid-morning coffee or juice at Empório Jardim.

A good lunch option is the Carioca-style steakhouse Pura Brasa. Crispy chicken and chicken hearts are classics here.

Catch a cab to the upscale Urca district, a promontory on Guanabara Bay, and ride up to the top of Sugar Loaf. There are helicopter flights, but what’s the rush? Rio is overlooked by many monolithic granite and quartz hills – called morros – and they’re a key part of the natural drama of the city. Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açúcar) got that name because it is thought to resemble loaf sugar. 

Portuguese explorers entered Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502 and thought they’d discovered a river, hence Rio de Janeiro (January River). The view from the top will help you get you your bearings. Inland – north – is Flamengo with its beach and downtown and the bridge over to Niterói.

Go down to the Mureta da Urca seawall to watch the sunset with locals. There are cold beers, cocktails and seafood snacks at the bars on Urca beach.

After a shower and change, have a perfect caipirinha at the pool bar of the Copacabana Palace before shimmying over to its Michelin starred Pan-Asian restaurant Mee for dinner. Whether you choose the tasting menu, sushi or sashimi, seafood and fish are at the forefront.

Today you’ll focus on the other face of Rio – the downtown historic core, where most business people work and locals get their cultural fixes. Start with morning coffee at  the Confeitaria Colombo, a venerable, mirror and crystal-clad café and intellectual talking shop that featured in our list of the 50 greatest cafés in the world.

The opening of the Museu de Arte do Rio in 2013 gave the city a serious art museum. As well as fine art by the likes of Tarsila do Amaral and Aleijadinho, there’s a section that celebrates the iconography and visual imagery of the city.

Stretch your legs on the “Olympic Boulevard”, also known as Orla Conde, a pedestrianised waterfront promenade that was opened for the 2016 Games. Here you have the option of taking a look at the Museum of Tomorrow, a future-tilting applied sciences museum.

Downtown Rio has some handsome buildings. Even if you don’t want to enter them all, take a hike to see the National Library, Municipal Theatre, Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre, Royal Portuguese Reading Office (a library). If Brutalism is more your kind of thing, check out the Metropolitan Cathedral and Petrobras HQ. Jump on metro line 2 to visit the Maracaná, the legendary home of Brazilian football. 

Have lunch at Café Lamas in Flamengo. Here since 1874, it’s a pasta and chicken and chips sort of place, but good to experience as a blast of old Rio. If you weren’t lucky enough to try the traditional feijoada (black bean stew) anywhere else, you can get one here on Saturdays.

Catching glimpses of the Christ the Redeemer statue happens all the time in Rio. But to get a sense of its scale it’s worth going to stand beside it on top of 2,300-feet high Mount Corcovado. The peak lies within the Parque Nacional da Tijuca – a bona fide natural wilderness in the heart of the city. Take the red narrow-gauge train that departs every 30 minutes from the Cosme Velho station; the ride takes approximately 20 minutes, cutting through the forest.

Catch the train down the hill and take a taxi to Botafogo for dinner at Oteque, where chef Alberto Landgraf – whose roots are Japanese and German – uses the finest Brazilian ingredients from across the latitudes to create artful food.

Samba at Pedra do Sal in the Saúde district close to the centre/MAR, is a great, informal samba jam that celebrates the city’s Bahian community and their African heritage. It happens every Monday and Friday from 6pm and is free to enter/watch. Monday is the classic night. It’s cancelled when it rains heavily. Find more information at instagram.com/pedradosaloficial.

A long, slender hillside district, Santa Teresa has one toe in downtown but has an altogether more bohemian air.  You can go there on the Bondinho de Santa Teresa, the last remaining tram line – running from the square called Largo da Carioca to Dois Irmãos, crossing the historic Arcos de Lapa aqueduct. Santa Teresa evolved around a convent founded on the Morro do Desterro in the mid-18th century. Narrow streets covered in colourful graffiti, a bustling plaza (Largo do Guimarães), excellent local gallery, little cafés and bars, a painted staircase (Escadaria Selarón) and an excellent lunch-stop at the Bar do Mineiro make it feel different to other Rio districts. There are lots of dining options on Rua Almirante Alexandrino.

When it’s hot a beach walk can be tiring; there’s a bike path all along the front and bikes to hire at 300 stations dotted around the city; e-bikes are available.

Rio was the capital of the Portuguese empire from 1808 to 1822 – though the crown prince refused to go back to Europe with his father.

Summer begins in earnest in Rio in late November. As the huge, city-wide New Year’s Eve party, Reveillon, draws closer, hotel prices, in tandem with the temperatures, start to rise. The inflated charges stay until Carnival (late February or early March), during which time beaches are at their busiest. For three weeks before and a week after Carnival proper, the streets throng with revellers.

June and July have cooler nights and daytime temperatures drop from the mid-30s to a more comfortable mid-20 degrees Celsius.

Occasional cold fronts can settle in for as long as a fortnight (even in usually balmy December), when the city seems to retreat into its shell, but as a general rule March and April are best avoided as annual rains bring localised flooding.

Belmond Copacabana Palace is the grand dame of Rio, and as central to the city’s sense of self as Sugar Loaf Mountain and Carnival. While anything goes on the sweeping beach over which she presides, the hotel has an elegant if mischievous feel – the old world lobby, the fine restaurants, that ‘see and be seen’ pool. She has been here a century and has never looked better.

Read our full review

Santa Teresa Hotel RJ MGallery is a former coffee finca set in the undulating landscape of the ever charming, bohemian neighbourhood from which it takes its name, the Hotel Santa Teresa has the air of a hillside retreat, but packs in all the amenities of a five-star hotel, including one of the city’s best spas.

Read our full review

Most international visitors arrive at Galeão, also known as Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport. British Airways, Latam and TAP fly here, as do the main European and US carriers. There’s no metro line direct to the airport, and the BRT bus runs to areas outside the main beaches. 

If you are travelling with a tour operator, ask for a transfer; it takes at least 35-40 minutes to the downtown or beach areas, but up to 1.5 hours at rush hour. Some internal flights land at Santos Dumont airport, which is close to downtown and just 20 minutes from Copacabana. Both airports have plenty of car hire stands.

Metro lines 1 and 4, linking the city centre and beach area with Barra da Tijuca, the fast-developing beach and residential zone west of the city, are useful.

Beachwear comes in all styles and sizes and you can also pick up some jungle or football or flag-themed flip-flops while you’re in the store. Adriana Degreas is a great designer and has a store on the second floor of Shopping Leblon. Blueman, in the same mall, has cool gear and bathers for men.

British Consulate: Rua Praia do Flamengo 284, Flamengo (0055 21 2555 9600; gov.uk/world/organisations/british-consulate-general-rio-de-janeiro)

Tourist information: RioTur, Avenida Princesa Isabel 183, Copacabana (0055 21 2298 7890; riotur.prefeitura.rio). Also, see the English-language official site visitrio.com.br.

Emergency services:

• Ambulance 192
• Police 190
• Fire 193

Currency: the official currency is the Real, written R$, and is the only currency accepted in the city; the plural is Reais.

Telephone code from abroad: + 55 for Brazil, 21 for Rio. Drop the first zero of any local number.

Time difference: GMT minus 2, 3 (Rio, Brasilia, Atlantic coast), 4 or 5 east to west

Travelling time: around 12 hours from the UK

• Wherever you are in the city, it is advisable to keep alert to those around you and avoid using your phone in the street, wearing jewellery or taking a full wallet out: only carry what is absolutely necessary. Robberies on the beaches, particularly around Arpoador, are not uncommon, so keep personal belongings within reach.

• Brazilians are ultra-casual, and close to the beach will wear next to nothing when entering bars or even a local bank. Downtown people are more formal and ordinary urban wear is expected for museums, restaurants and, especially, churches.

• Tourists interested in visiting the favelas dotting the hillsides should only go with a local guide.

• Brazil is an inward-looking, quite monolingual country. Don’t expect people to speak English and some will refuse to speak Spanish. Arm yourself with a few key words and keep an online translator or app handy.

Despite hosting the World Cup and Olympic Games, Rio is not an inclusive, disability-friendly city. Crossings have no sound, steep kerbs and cracked pavements are common. City buses are wheelchair-accessible as is the metro system. Rio Accessible Tour specialises in inclusive experiences.

Chris Moss began to visit Rio while living in Buenos Aires in the 1990s. He goes back all the time – the planes stop there anyway – and has explored the beaches, downtown, favelas, samba clubs and local art scene. “Beauty is usually in the eyes of the beholder, but in Rio it was divinely ordained,” he says.