– Maybe it is the weather or time of year, but beach culture here seems a lot like…beach culture in a lot of places. Ipanema and Copacabana are great and all, but I was led to believe that life on the beach was everything here, and that it was quite a bit different from other places. To me, it is quite similar to places in Mexico, Florida, and the French Riviera. I would love to come back at carnival time and see what effect it has on the beach life.
– It is shockingly difficult to find a restaurant for breakfast in areas that should be crawling with them, like Ipanema. There are several dinner places, just not very much for breakfast. I guess people are still recovering at that hour or making something light at home.
-Speaking of restaurants, there seem to be mostly three kinds: Italian, sushi, and stand up at the counter snack places. Outside of that, we have seen exactly one all you can eat meat place.
– Although I have always heard that Copacabana is not as nice as Ipanema, we took a walk over there today and found it to be every bit as pleasant and in some ways better served than Ipanema.
It seems that few places take breakfast as seriously as the U.S., but you’d know better about this.
So where is the “real” Rio? The beaches are not populated by a bunch of Rufskin boys?
Have you visited that one artsy hilltop neighborhood?
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