Rio de Janeiro Travel

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach erupted in Samba dancing and joy on Friday after the Brazilian city won the vote to host the 2016 Olympic Games, bringing the world's biggest sporting event to South America for the first time. The decision in Copenhagen kicked off a Carnival-style celebration on the sand as thousands of Cariocas, as Rio residents are known, danced and shouted in delight in front of a big stage and screens that showed the vote live. The decision confirming Rio's victory over Madrid in the final vote was greeted by screams of excitement and outbreaks of Samba ... Read Full Story

The 2016 Olympics are going to Rio de Janeiro, putting the games in South America for the first time. Rio beat surprise finalist Madrid in the last round of voting. Chicago was knocked out in the first round — in one of the most shocking defeats ever handed down by the International Olympic Committee — and Tokyo was eliminated in the second round. Rio had played heavily on the fact that South America has never previously hosted the games, while Europe, Asia and North America have done so repeatedly. Now, only Africa and Antarctica remain as continents that have not been awarded an Olympics. Read Full Story

Brazilian search teams on Saturday recovered two male bodies, a plane seat and other remains from an Air France jetliner that went down over the Atlantic nearly a week ago with 228 people on board, officials said. The finds -- the first from the crash -- were to be taken to the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, the closest inhabited spot to the zone they were found, for initial inspection by five Brazilian forensic police. From there, they were to be flown to the mainland city of Recife for further analysis by French officials leading the investigation into what brought down the Air France flight ... Read Full Story

The Favorite Movie Period/Place Meme By Marilyn Ferdinand A few days ago, Daniel Getahun at the glorious blog Getafilm challenged me and several other bloggers to come up with a post for a meme he dreamed up. We were to choose a place (real or imaginary) and a time (past, present, or future) depicted in one or more films that we'd most like to visit and explain why. Here is what I chose. Place : Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Time/Period : 1959 As Seen In : Bossa Nova (2000) This movie is a bit of a cheat as a representative of the period I’ve ... Read Full Story

From 13 February to 3 May 2009, the Kunsthaus Zürich presents ‘Hot Spots’, an exhibition devoted to the artistic avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Milan and Turin, and Los Angeles. The show features outstanding works of art, photography, architecture and design by such world-renowned figures as Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Mario Merz, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha and James Turrell. The postwar period saw Paris and New York, the traditional capitals of the creative world, joined by fresh hot spots on the artistic landscape. Tobia Bezzola coordinated curatorship of the show – a ‘meta-exhibition’ – at ... Read Full Story