Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro is a worldwide-famous city and although it only has half the amount of inhabitants compared to the nearby São Paulo's 13 million, it is the city to visit in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is as exciting as Michael Moore is controversial, as crazy as the size of Jay Leno's chin and you are just as likely to fall in love with this place as Nicolas Sarkozy is going to put the interests of the European Union before the interests of France.

Ok, that last thing was a joke.

But it is not for nothing. Rio de Janeiro may occupy the most spectacular city-setting in the world with mountains, cliffs, sand-beaches, deep-blue sea and rainforests; all featuring in the background of the Rio de Janeiro-postcard behind modern skyscrapers.

And if that wouldn't be enough to convince you, there is always the craziest party in the world (the carnival), the mountain-top statue of the Christ Redeemer (one of the world's new seven wonders), the sugar loaf (iconic mountain), or why not football madness on one of the world's biggest football stadiums (Maracanã).

Unfortunately (as I have started to say about an awful lot of places recently) I didn't have enough time to stay longer and explore more of the city. But nevertheless, even though I couldn't go to a Samba-school, see a football match (the league was between the first and second stage), swim at all the classic beaches, do bar hopping, see the carnival or go hang-gliding, it was definitely a cool place with a lot to do and see. And there is always a next time, right?

The Rio-pictures follows below. They should be pretty self-explaining by now.