Second day in Rio – Walking Tour

Wanting to see the city bit by bit I decided to join a “free” walking tour. For everybody not knowing that concept: The tourguides don’t actually work for free but the rely on getting tips at the end.
In theory this should ensure some pretty good tours.

So down to Centro and on we go. After visiting one of the older bakeries (or was it the oldest) we were told a little bit about the history of Rio (and Brazil) with the Portuguese court coming over and going back again.

Well it wasn’t that interesting after all. But maybe Brazil (and Rio) does not have that much history to tell in this city. Even if Rio was the capital of Brazil for some time.

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The important information I got out of the whole tour was that the Bondi is running again. The Bondi is a tram that used to run from centro all through the relatively rich Santa Teresa and used the old wooden aqueduct rebuilt in stone as a viaduct to get through Lapa.
Four years ago they stopped the tram because it was getting to expensive. Just two weeks ago they reopened the first part as they want to have it running again for the olympics next year. The part running right now is a test so you can drive it for for free until four in the afternoon.

After the tour which concluded at the Escaderiea Selaron  I went to the Centro again to find a few new sites. Aside from the cathedral which looks bad from the outside but quite nice from the inside there were a few other buildings. Finding the tram station proved to be not that easy even knowing that it was supposed to be next to the Petrobras building. It seems the signs weren’t set up yet.