Tour Rio 11 — Botanical Gardens and Santa Tereza Duration: 4 hours

JARDIM BOTÂNICO

Jardim Botânico — Of all of Rio’s green city parks, this is per­haps the best and most ele­gant. Cre­ated by Dom João VI, Regent Prince at the time, to accli­ma­tize the spices Por­tu­gal used to import from the East Indies, in Octo­ber 11th 1808 the Gar­den became the Royal Hor­ti­cul­ture. The Gar­den only opened offi­cially after 1822

Among the first plants intro­duced in the Botan­i­cal Gar­den was a palm (Roy­s­tonea oler­acea), planted by the Regent Prince him­self. From that moment on, the tree has been com­monly known as the Royal or Impe­r­ial Palm. The palm planted by D.João was denom­i­nated Palma Mater.

The Botan­i­cal Gar­den is now a favorite relax­ation spot. The charm­ing mix of gar­dens, sculp­tures, ponds, foun­tains, trop­i­cal for­est and impe­r­ial palm boule­vards includes more than 6,000 inter­na­tional plant species spread over 338 acres. Every sea­son, nature pro­vides a show that shouldn’t be missed.

PARQUES DAS RUÍNAS

Par­que da Ruí­nas — Par­que das Ruinas, a turn of the cen­tury man­sion, is the icon of the Santa Teresa neigh­bor­hood “Golden Era” when the cream of Rio’s soci­ety lived and or fre­quented the place.

The mansion’s owner, Lucinda San­tos Lobo a charm­ing and clever woman who at the turn of the XIX cen­tury was the intel­lec­tual “engine” of Rio, became noto­ri­ous for the soirées she orga­nized, fre­quented by renowned politi­cians, diplo­mats and of course artists.

The charm­ing Lucinda salons were silence wit­nesses to per­for­mances by Villa-Lobos and Isadora Dun­can as well as pop­u­lar artists of the time to many peo­ple dismay.

MUSEU CHÁCARA DO CÉU

Museu Chá­cara do Céu — In 1936 indus­tri­al­ist and arts patron Ray­mundo Ottoni de Cas­tro Maya inher­ited Chá­cara do Céu man­sion in the bucolic neigh­bor­hood of Santa Teresa.

In 1957 Cas­tro Maya had it ren­o­vated by mod­ernist archi­tect Wladimir Alves de Souza and the gar­dens designed by world famous land­scape artist Roberto Burle Marx.

Opened in 1972, Chá­cara do Céu Museum links art, his­tory and nature in flaw­less har­mony. Home to a large col­lec­tion of books, as well as paint­ings, ceram­ics, fur­ni­ture and objets d’art, out­stand­ing items include works by artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Miró, Mar­cous­sis, Di Cav­al­canti, and Porti­nari, as well as a large col­lec­tion of water­col­ors and draw­ings by Debret.

Lunch — Chrras­caria Por­cão Rio’s (Fla­mengo Park) — Located at a priv­i­leged site and impec­ca­ble ser­vice, it offers the best meat of the city, as well as an assorted buf­fet of sal­ads, sea food and Japan­ese cui­sine.. NOT INCLUDED.