High rocky hills from where one can see the horizon, a deep blue sea with fine white sand, surrounded by tropical forests with vast biodiversity, lagoons and a paradise weather. Few places in the World can compare in beautiness with Rio de Janeiro.
With a population of nearly seven million people, the capital of Rio de Janeiro State has been the main tourism center in Brazil for decades (a legacy from the times when the city was capital of the Republic) and one of the first destinations foreigners think of when planning to visit Latin America.
Ipanema and Copacabana beaches and the Cristo Redentor (The Christ) have been restlessly sung in different songs, but one still needs to put music into the Guanabara Bay and into the monumental contours of the relief that embrace the forest, the ocean and the Gávea Rock.
And Rio is also one of the football capitals of Brazil. The most popular team in the World (the one with the highest number of fans) is Flamengo; other important clubs are Fluminense, Vasco da Gama and Botafogo.
The main temple of football is Maracanã. Built for the World Cup of 1950, the stadium will be renovated for the World Cup 2014; for safety, the capacity will be reduced, and the record crowd of nearly 200,000 attendants of 1950 won’t be repeated.
Read more about the World Cup in Rio.
Rio will be the first city to host the World Cup and the following Olympic Games; read more about the Olympic Games in Rio.
World Cup Cities 2014 