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South East Asia Adventure
060506 Rio
We had a great time with Eileen & John Fees parents and Terry. We visited street markets in Copacabana, the Gypsy Market in Ipanema and spent time at Copacabana & Ipanema beaches and walking around old Rio.
Fee and John were boogieboarding but the surf was getting the better of them.
We all met up with Felipe and Silvestre on Sunday for lunch at a local Kilo restaurant (these are buffet restaurants where they weight your plate full of food - a good place to try different dishes).
After lunch John went off to the Mercana Stadium to watch a local football match. He had a great time and even met a fellow Arsenal supporter.
Jude, Fee and Terry went off with Felipe and Silvestre on a whistle-stop tour of the Centro district, stopping at Mosreiro Sao Bento a monastery with a gilt interior and taking afternoon tea in the Cultural centre (housed in an old bank).
We said our farewells to Terry, he was flying home the following day.
Sadly John & Eileen let us on the Thursday so we went to the airport with them. We had a great time with them. It was funny that Fiona mentioned some time before they arrived that her parents would love South America but they would never come here........ Never say Never!
The next day we moved to Lemon Spirit Hostel in Leblon just next to Ipanema. It was clean and friendly not like our last Hostel in Buenos Aires. The Jardim Botanico was just down the road so we spent the afternoon strolling through the plants. Huge Bamboo over 100 feet and Palms of every description.
On Sunday we took the bus to Petropolis - only an hour by bus, but it took over an hour to get to the bus station. The bus climbed through the lush green forests until we reached the "Imperial City". Called this as Don Pedro II had a summer retreat here and so it became popular with the court. Getting our priorities right we had lunch first and then made our way to the Palacio Imperial. We were quiet amused as we were supplied with enormous over slippers (see pic) to polish the floor as we walked through the rooms. We walked down a wide tree lined aveneda with a canal in the centre - it was full of enormous Mansions.
On our last day in Rio we tried to do a walk in Santa Teresa but we missed the tram. We then tried to visit the Carmen Miranda Museum which had been recommended to us. It was closed for renovations. To console ourselves we went to an amazing tea room. It was like stepping back in time - the beautiful tiled floor, stained glass ceiling, huge gilt mirrors were all intact - I'd guess it was Victorian. We had the best cup of tea since leaving the UK and Fiona had a lemon meringue pie and I had a tasty Portuguese tart - yum.
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