Her name is Rio..... (GB)

The 10 hour flight from New York into Rio went really quick for me, probably due to a full on 3 days in NYC, a 'few' airport beers, an airline G & T and a sleeping tablet! For the first time ever I managed to sleep for best part of 8 hours on a plane! Not so much for Lauren who only got 4 hours :-(

Arriving at Rio airport, we were on high alert as we'd been warned about pick pockets and rogue taxi companies, both looking to prey upon weary tourists.

We found a cash point, taxi and had written down our destination to give to the driver along with the amount we were prepared to pay. The driver (we'll call him Lewis Hamilton for the sake of this blog post) got us to our guest house in record time. It was like he was a drug baron and the chief of police was hunting him down. Thank the Lord for seatbelts!

Guesthouse Bianca was everything we'd hoped for.  Shabby chic with original 1930s wooden flooring and beautiful antiques adorning marble mantle pieces, stain glass windows and ornate staircases leading to beautiful Gardens with mature mango trees & exotic flowers. Props to Lauren for her astounding choice of accommodation on a really tight budget. 

Breakfast area

Gate to Street

Top of stairs/hallway

Our Bedroom

Bianca is in the heart of Santa Teresa, the old suburb of Rio. Much quieter, safer and less expensive than downtown Rio.  Cobbled Stone roads lead to a string of tiny restaurants one of which we visited for lunch on Thursday. 

Cafe Cito was a beautiful old Cafe with waiters who didn't speak a word of English! This was my chance to try out some Portuguese from my app phrase book, or so I thought! "I would like a sandwich please" I uttered in terrible Portuguese. His confused face made me rather embarrassed. I tried again and ended up showing him the phrase on my app to read himself, which he still didn't understand!! I found out later that none of their staff were locals and in fact most were Argentinean so I felt a little better and ended up ordering lunch with a combination of Allo Allo style speaking and caveman points and grunts, something I fear may be the start of things to come!

Lauren at Cafe Cito 

The rest of the day was spent chilling and we had a very early night in preparation for a busy day of sightseeing on Friday.