Copacabana and Ipanema
Four kilometres of sand and the most copied pavement mosaic in the world.
Duration
2 hrs – 5 hrs
Best time
Late afternoon
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
Copacabana runs four kilometres and its pavement of black and white stone waves, designed by Roberto Burle Marx in 1970, has been copied all over the world. The beach is divided into numbered postos, each with its own crowd: families, sports players, the LGBT community at Ipanema's posto 9.
Ipanema, on the far side of the fort, is quieter and faces the Two Brothers, the twin peaks that close the beach to the west. That is where the sun sets straight down the axis, and bathers applaud as it goes.
Getting there
Metro lines 1 and 4: Cardeal Arcoverde, Siqueira Campos and Cantagalo for Copacabana, General Osório for Ipanema.
What to bring
- Swimsuit
Rules on site
Go down to the beach with the bare minimum: no watch, no jewellery, a little cash and nothing else. Snatch thefts are common on the promenade late in the day, and the rip current between postos is real.
Other places in Rio de Janeiro
- Christ the RedeemerThirty-eight metres of concrete with its arms open, seven hundred metres above the bay.
- Sugarloaf MountainTwo cable cars in succession up to three hundred and ninety-six metres, above the mouth of the bay.
- Selarón StepsTwo hundred and fifteen steps covered in two thousand tiles from sixty countries.
- Botanical GardenAn avenue of thirty-metre imperial palms, and marmosets in the branches.