Traveling Tolins 2

The Christ Statue & Tijuca Forest  Exhilarating Rio de Janeiro is the peak of Brazilian culture.  The local Cariocas call their city Cidade Maravilhosa ("Marvelous City"), and it is easy to under-stand why:  The rhythm of the samba, born in these lively streets, fills the air and stately colonial architecture rubs shoulders with gleaming skyscrapers. Legendary beaches, Copacabana and Ipanema among them, stretch for 45 miles along Guanabara Bay, luring sun worshipers, swimmers, joggers, and volleyball enthusiasts.  The  Christ the Redeemer  statue seems to offer a gentle embrace to it all from high atop Corcofado mountain. Christ the Redeemer  is an  Art Deco  statue of  Jesus Christ  in  Rio de Janeiro ,  Brazil , created by French sculptor  Paul Landowski  and built by Brazilian engineer  Heitor da Silva Costa , in collaboration with French engineer  Albert Caquot .   Romanian  sculptor  Gheorghe Leonida  fashioned the face.  Constructed between 1922 and 1

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL Rio de Janeiro  ( River of January; January 1, 1502 discoverers thought the extremely wide bay was the mouth of a river so misnamed it "Rio" instead of Bahia), or simply  Rio , is anchor to the  Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area  and the  second-most populous municipality in Brazil and the  sixth-most populous  in the  Americas .  Rio de Janeiro (population 6.3 million) is the capital of  the state  of  Rio de Janeiro , Brazil's  third-most populous state .  Part of the city has been designated as a  World Heritage Site , named " Rio de Janeriro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea ", by  UNESCO  on 1 July 2012 as a Cultural Landscape. Founded in 1565 by the  Portuguese , the city was initially the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro , a domain of the  Portuguese Empire .  Later, in 1763, it became the capital of the  State of Brazil , a  state of the Portuguese Empire .  In 1808, when the  Portuguese Royal Co