Rio de Janeiro: Saluting the setting sun

-


The Arpoador rock, jutting up at the border between the Copacabana and the Ipanema beaches, is a favorite place to be in Rio, when the sun sets.

We sat there tonight, together with hundreds of cariocans, watching the sun setting down in all its splendor behind the mountain ridges west of Rio.



Guys climbed around the rock, selling long drinks to the spectators, and when the sun finally vanished in blushing red and orange, like everybody around us, we applauded the fantastic spectacle.


  • A few times during the summer you can actually from Pedra do Arpoador see the sun set directly into the sea - a rare sight in  the Rio area. 
  • Normally you see the sun setting behind the mountains and you have to arrive in good time, as nighfall is a least half an hour before the official sunset time of Rio.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What No Moving Box Can Hold: Saying Goodbye to Our French Mountain Home

-
Image
Selling a house should be regarded as just a transaction.  That, at least, is what one of our more unsentimental friends told us. Yet, as we packed up our now-sold townhouse in the mountain village of Antraigues-Sur-Volane in Southern France, we found that the cardboard boxes stacked in our living room represented more than mere containers for transporting objects. They were, in fact, inadequate vessels for what we were truly attempting to pack: Almost twenty years of lived experience. The real estate listing described our house as a "charming two-bedroom property with traditional features," but it failed to capture what this place actually represents.  This has not just been our vacation house. During the last many years it became truly our home away from home as the seasonal rhythms of our visits created a peculiar form of belonging.  Though we were never full-time residents, the village baker would greet us warmly upon our arrival each year, and the neighbors woul...
Read more

Lisbon: Crawling Through Time: Reflections from secret Roman Galleries

-
Image
Yesterday, I crawled through muddy, dark Roman-era tunnels below Lisbon, which are normally filled with groundwater and only accessible to a few visitors each year. The tunnels were carved during the reign of Emperor Augustus, and for centuries, they directed underground rainwater while the empires above rose and fell. Eventually, they were completely sealed off and forgotten,  only to be rediscovered by chance during the rebuilding after the 1755 earthquake, which had turned most of Lisbon into rubble. Today, the crypts are pumped dry on a couple of days each year, and the only entry to the below is through a narrow shaft in the middle of the busy Rua da Conceição, right between the rails of the 28 tram line. The stairs  leading down are steep and risky, and when you finally reach the galleries, a few lights illuminate the void that had stood in complete darkness for more than a Millenium  Some of the tunnels are so low and narrow that you have to climb through t...
Read more

Lisbon: Crumbling Warehouses and Crispy Sardines

-
Image
Yesterday, our journey along Lisbon's shores took us from decay to delight.  We began the day by walking along the crumbling warehouses and abandoned factories at the Cais do Ginjal, and we ended with golden sardines and moist monkfish at the Ponto Finale restaurant, experiencing some of the cur.ious contrasts this city has to offer.  Cais do Ginjal - the waterfront across the river from the city proper - were once thrumming with activity, but  now they stand empty as a relic from Portugal's industrial past while slowly succumbing to rust and decay.   Wandering past the locked warehouses with their peeling paint and cracked windows, one could almost hear the ghosts of ships being loaded years ago.  Wildflowers sprouted from brickwork worn by salt air and time. Graffiti swirled vibrantly across deteriorating walls in attempts to reclaim these forgotten structures. In one warehouse, an entire wall had collapsed, exposing rusty pipes and machinery ...
Read more