This tour contains incredible images of the Marvelous City, taken from Google Earth, and they will give you a sense of the geography and location of famous tourist spots in the city.
First, this is the entire metro area of Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunatelly, not ALL of Rio has detailed sat imagery, so you wont see for example Barra da Tijuca, the richest neighborhood in Rio, which is also quite big, not the Rio racing track (already used for F1, now used for MotoGP and Formula Indy) nor the location of the Rock In Rio festival. As you can see, there are letters I put there, to make it easier to see where in the metro other closer images are located.
Rio is located on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the south and Guanabara Bay, which is surrounded by the metro cities of Rio de Janeiro, Duque De Caxias, Niterói and São Gonçalo. Guanabara Bay was first discovered in the 16th century. The spanish explorer, thinking it was the mouth of a big river, named the spot RIO DE JANEIRO (JANEIRO meaning January, month of the discovery, and Rio meaning River. So Rio de Janeiro literaly translates as January River)
A, the SOUTH ZONE
This is the southern area of Rio... famous toursitic spots are located here, as the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, the Christ Statue and the Sugarloaf mountain. Its an incredible dense area, each block being COMPLETELY taken by midrises and highrises, much like European cities as Paris, but instead of 5-6 floors, being 10-12 floors. some more.
A-1
Ipanema beach... this is the beach of the famous song "The Girl of Ipanema". THere is the possibility you dont know the song, but you certainly already heard it, at least in some movie!
A-2
Copacabana beach. Probably the most famous beach in Rio. It has incredible density, all blocks being almost like solid structures of 12 floors or more.
A-3
wouldnt you want to play tennis in those courts excavated on the rock behind the two highrise condos???
A-4
This is the world famous Christ the Redeemer Statue on the top of Corcovado Mountain.
A-5
This is the sugarloaf mountain, with the cablecar in which James Bond fought Steelteeth in that movie... I forgot the name both of the movie and of the Steelteeth caracther. But you get what I mean right? Above the sugarloaf mountain you can see the small bay of Botafogo with the marina. The connection between Botafogo and Copacabana is made by a tunnel. In fact, MANY areas of the city are connected by tunnels... there are more than 50 tunnels in the city.
A-5a
Here is a closer look at A-5, showing the Urca neighborhood, in the foot of Sugarloaf mountain. Urca is the traditional bohemian neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.
A-5b
This is a military college nested between the slopes of Sugarloaf and another mountain, and with its own beach. What a magnificent place!
B, PARADISE OF THE RICH
West of the South Zone of Rio, is Barra da Tijuca. Barra da Tijuca is the neighborhood of the RICH. It has huge mansions and hundreds of luxury highrise condos, and also enormous shopping malls. Unfortunatelly, Barra da Tijuca is completely out of the "detailed" area of Google Earth, so its only possible to see this beautiful area that is almost a gateway from South Zone to Barra da Tijuca. Some mansions in a paradisiac setting!
C, HELL OF THE POOR
C1
This is Rocinha, the largest shantytown in Rio de Janeiro. It has at least 50 thousand inhabitants. Although as all shantytowns it started by irregular settlements, its now being slowly urbanized. Its a city in itself, with academies, supermarkets, video rental stores, etc... although all of them are usually cheap of course
As you can see, in the bottom of the picture there is a highway coming out from the mountain. Yes, its a 3 kilometers long tunnel that connects this area of the city to Ipanema.
C2
This image is to show the contrast between rich and poor... and how close both live in brazilian cities... on the left, Rocinha shantytown... on the right, mansions with pools.
D, THE POOR HAVE BETTER VISTAS THAN THE RICH!
This image just shows this shantytown, on the slope of a mountain, giving all the shackles an awesome view of the ocean!
next, GoogleEarth images of downtown Rio, northern suburbs and the Rio-Niteroi bridge and other cool stuff. Will post the link to the other thread as soon as I finish it!>
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