Not so far from the stairs in Lapa exists Rio’s contribution to one of the new seven wonders of the world. We had been followed around by Christ everywhere we went in Rio (purely geographically of course) but you can’t come to Rio without giving him a proper visit.
The mountain Christ sits on is known as the Corcovado mountain (hunchback) and it’s 710m high so the most popular way to get up there is by train. Of course with this being Brazil this was no ordinary train ride. A few minutes in to the ride we were joined by a gorgeous and energetic Samba group who managed to get us to dance even in that tiny little carriage. God I love this country!
The Christ statue is supposed to be the world’s largest Art Deco statue as it is 30m tall and its arms 28m wide. It was designed in 1920 during “Monument week” when the Catholic Circle of Rio collected signatures and donations from the citizens of Rio in order to build the statue. The design was by local Brazilian engineer Hector da Silva Costa and it took nine years to build, finally being opened in 1931.
The statue now looms over the city as a symbol of Catholicism and it’s seen by many as the protector of the city. It has with time become an icon and appears in mainly culture references such as one of my favourite films “City of God” and in a beautiful scene in Bad Luhrmann’s “Romeo and Juliet”. It was impressive to see it close up and the view of the city is nice but I got most excited when we would see it from the window of our favourite little flats in Siquiera Campos 🙂
Samba de Janeiro
