Brazil - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 242

Since the 1960s, Ipanema and Leblon
have developed a reputation as a fashion
centre, and are now seen as among the
most chic bairros in all of Brazil. Try to visit
on a Friday for the food and flower market
on the Praça de Paz, or on Sunday for the
Feira Hippie bric-a-brac market at Praça
General Osório. Bars and restaurants are
scattered throughout the two bairros ,
though many of Rio's best restaurants are
located around Leblon's Rua Dias Ferreira.

Jockey Club . Races take place four times
a week throughout the year (Mon
6.30-11.30pm, Fri 4-9.30pm, Sat & Sun
2-8pm; shorts not allowed). Any bus
marked “via Jóquei” will get you here;
get off at Praça Santos Dumont at the
end of Rua Jardim Botânico. About 3km
northwest of the Jockey Club, at Rua
Marquês de São Vicente 476, is the
Instituto Moreira Salles (Tues-Sun 1-8pm;
free; T 21 3284 7400), one of Rio's most
beautiful cultural centres. Completed in
1951, the house is one of the finest
examples of modernist architecture in
Brazil - and the gardens, landscaped by
Roberto Burle Marx, are attractive too.
To the northwest of Lagoa lies the
Jardim Botânico bairro , whose Parque Lage
(daily 8am-5pm), designed by the British
landscape gardener John Tyndale in the
early 1840s, consists of primary forest with
a labyrinthine network of paths and ponds,
as well as its artsy Café do Lage inside an
Italianate mansion. A little further west is
the Jardim Botânico itself (daily 8am-5pm;
R$5; W jbrj.gov.br), half of it natural jungle,
the other half laid out in impressive

Lagoa, Gávea and Jardim Botânico
Inland from Ipanema's plush beaches is the
Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, always referred
to simply as Lagoa . A lagoon linked to
the ocean by a narrow canal that passes
through Ipanema's Jardim de Alah, Lagoa
is fringed by wealthy apartment buildings.
On Sundays, its 8km perimeter pathway
comes alive with strollers, rollerbladers,
joggers and cyclists. Summer evenings are
especially popular, with food stalls and live
music at parks on the southeastern and
western shores of the lagoon.
North of Leblon, heading west from
Lagoa's shores, is Gávea , home of the

3

BARRA DA TIJUCA AND THE OLYMPICS
Rio's answer to Miami, Barra da Tijuca occupies the coastal plain of the city's west zone
(Zona Oeste) between an inland lagoon system and 23km of almost unbroken white sand. The
natural setting is stupendous, but unless you have a love for skyscrapers and shopping malls
(Barra Shopping offers a full kilometre of consumer therapy), not to mention your own wheels,
you're unlikely to find a trip here very enlightening - or easy on the pocket.
Half the events of the 2016 Olympic Games will take place in Barra, mainly in a purpose-
built Olympic village on the shores of picturesque Lagoa de Jacarepaguá (30km by road west
of Leblon), a development which includes the vast RioCentro conference centre, famous for
hosting the 1992 UN Earth Summit. Unusually, the main Olympic stadiums are located a good
distance away: the Maracanã will host the opening and closing ceremonies and much of the
football, while the athletics is scheduled for Engenhão stadium in the Zona Norte (accessed by
train from Centro and bus from the Olympic village), an arrangement already rehearsed at the
2007 Pan-American Games.
Controversy has nonetheless followed Barra's land speculation boom in advance of the
games. Voracious development here monopolized city resources for a quarter century from
the late 1960s, yet planners failed to account for the area's working-class builders, maids and
other service personnel. As with other areas of Rio, favelas grew quickly, the most famous of
which is just inland from Barra at Cidade de Deus (City of God), immortalized worldwide in the
namesake Oscar-nominated film. While long-standing conflict ended with the implementation
of a police “pacification” unit in 2009, removal of other irregular housing around Barra remains
a matter of extreme contention - not least because many of their residents were forcibly
removed from favelas in Rio's Zona Sul under the military dictatorship in the 1970s. New hotels,
a golf course, bus routes and metrô extensions offer a mixed bag for a region not known for its
social inclusion. Journalists and campaigners are eagerly following Olympic developments:
check out the excellent sites W riorealblog.com and W rioonwatch.org.