A Political Lasagna

Rio De Janeiro Part 2


A day in Parliament
After leaving Teresopolis we were soon to be departing from Brazil entirely. This meant that we had to fly to Sao Paolo before flying onwards to Brazil. So we arrived back in Rio and stayed as close to the airport as we reasonably could. After all we only had one day to do anything. 

We arrived back in the bus station we had left from and then went towards the tram stop just outside. As we were staying in the Central area it was easier to get around by tram than it was by Metro or Bus. Unfortunately we needed to purchase some Rio Cards to use on the public transport, this was a bit of a pain as we could only use exact change to buy them and realistically only wanted to take two journeys on them. But nevertheless we paid the fare needed (mostly in 10 centivo pieces, imagine paying £6.80 in 10p pieces...) We took the tram to the Lapa neighborhood as that was the easiest place to get to our accommodation in Santa Teresa, a rather arty district near the city centre. We got off the tram and headed through the crowds towards where the map told us to go. Crossing the wide street near the Lapa arches was a bit nerve wracking, but we persevered and headed down a narrow side street that led to our accommodation. Then we were greeted with this view...

Escadaria Selaron, but already halfway up

This is the Escadaria Selaron, a stairway lovingly decorated by Chilean artist Jorge Selaron. A steep stairway that leads up 125m (410ft), this was really not something you want to see when loaded with backpacks. It was a struggle pushing through all the tourists who demanded an entire flight of steps for their various selfies, it would appear that everyone is a model these days... The steps themselves are actually really interesting. They were made by Jorge Selaron who decided to decorate his steps with Green, Yellow and Blue, the colours of the Brazilian flag. He started in 1990 as a bit of a side project to his painting, but it soon became an obsession. So obsessional that he was often broke, having spent all of his money on tiles. Eventually all of the steps were covered in tiles, which is no mean feet. I quite like figures so here we go, the numbers of the Escadaria Selaron

  • 215 Steps
  • 125 meters long
  • over 2000 tiles
  • 300 of these tiles are painted by Selaron
  • Various tiles were donated from over 60 countries
  • The work continued until he died in 2013, but was an ever evolving piece of work
  • The work features companies such as Coca Cola, Kellogg, National Geographic, American Express, Time (as in Time Magazine) and Playboy
  • Snoop Dogg (and Pharell Williams) and U2 have features this song in music videos (There is a link to the video on the artist's names. Iron Maiden even has a tile there. 
A tile from Prague at the steps
So we finally arrived at our accommodation which was an artist house near the convent that gives Santa Teresa its name. From here we were starving so went to find a supermarket and food. We had some Coxinhas and Pasty's and then some lovely peanut flapjack like sweet with some strong coffee, it was great. The supermarket was distinctly less so, it would appear that supermarkets are few and far between in central Rio. But more on that later.

Our visit to the steps

So we returned back to our accommodation, marveled at the great view from just outside our room and listened to the sounds of the city. The pings of the trams and the soft sound of a faraway samba band. The next morning we were ready to go after we had unsuccessfully searched for another supermarket. We got lunch where we'd had our dinner the night before and successfully ordered and paid for everything in our limited Portuguese.

The view from our accommodation

Our day was to consist of the cornucopia of architectural wonders that Rio holds. Rather than dully explain them all I will just put some captioned photos below for you to peruse. 
Olivia with her mouth full of food at the Municipal Theatre

The rather ugly Municipal Cathedral of Rio, Sao Sebastiao

It does get a little better inside

The much prettier Candelaria Church

After we had viewed the beautiful Baroque style Candelaria Church a true miracle occurred. We saw something that was even more amazing than anything we had seen before, we found... a supermarket!! Admittedly there wasn't a whole lot there apart from packets of biscuits and bottles of coke. But we found a frozen lasagna that we could have for our dinner tonight! So we bought it... along with a packet of biscuits, it would have been rude not to. So with glad hearts at our hunting for food we headed to have a look at the nearby Tiradentes Palace, a government building that was built to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the independence of Brazil. 

The glass roof, depicting the stars when independence was declared

Now we did not realise that what was offered was a free guided tour. We had originally planned to pop our heads in and go how lovely before heading back home, but no we ended up taking our little frozen lasagna on a tour of the head of the local council of the Municipal area of Rio de Janeiro. Not only that, but we discovered that until 1960 this used to house the government of the whole of Brazil. It only got worse when we went to the top floor and stood in the viewing gallery of the room that houses the local parliament to find out that they would soon be meeting. So there we were, tour guide suspiciously eyeing our bag with the lasagna in it as we are awkwardly stood around gawking at the building while thinking about what prats we must have looked like, stood there with a lasagna...

The pointillist paintings depicting independence
After that we headed home where we watched some Netflix before eating our rather politically charged lasagna, it was ok, but we secretly worried that it had gained presidential aspirations...

Until next time, I mean who knows what will happen next? A scotch egg in Buckingham Palace?

Future Prime Minister?


Location: Lapa - Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro - State of Rio de Janeiro, 20230-010, Brazil

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