On the Copa! Copacabana!
Written: Sep 23 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Greatest beach in the world!
Cons: ---
The Bottom Line: Stunningly beautiful beach with beautiful people enjoying life day and night, 365 days a year. Can heaven be better than a day on the Copacabana??
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Copacabana |
Every beach in the world has its own feel. Some are "couples" beaches, where romance hangs in the air. Others are "party" beaches, where fun and alcohol mix like Scotch and water. Some beaches are quiet, some are rugged and natural. Cabo San Lucas builds its reputation on great fishing. Cancun on the existence of spring break. In my opinion, Hawaii and surfing will always be synonomous.
Rio de Janiero is justly famous for its beaches, and the best of them all have their own character. Their own special feel. Their own attitude.
The boldest, brashest, most vibrant of the city's beaches has got to be Copacabana.
In a cosmopolitan city like Rio, where sophisticated, sensual hedonism is the rule of the day --- even when it's not Carnaval --- being the best beach is quite an accomplishment. But that's what Copacabana is...the best in a city of best beaches.
Oh sure, a lot of people like the sassy upscale attitude of Ipanema, and I do admit that Ipanema is an outstanding beach, but in my eyes, Copacabana beats even Ipanema. Let me tell you why...
The Beach!
If you look at an aerial photo of Rio, you can see that the Copacabana is a lot bigger than Ipanema --- probably twice as long, easily, and I'll wager that the most narrow stretch of sand on Copacabana is a wider beach than the widest point on Ipanema.
Copacabana is a beach lover's wet (and sandy) dream.
Copacabana is a playful beach too, and it isn't just the kids who get to build the sand castles on Copacabana, the adults get into the action too. As you stroll along the miles of impossibly wide white sandy shores, you can't help but be struck by the sheer number of beach volleyball courts and beach soccer fields set up everywhere. There must be dozens of the suckers! This is a city that takes its beach sports seriously!
Oddly enough, there aren't many people on the Copacabana hawking parasail rides, jet ski rentals, or any of the other activities that are so popular at beach resorts in the Caribbean and Mexican resort areas. You do find some of these folks down on Barra de Tijuca, but not really at Copacabana. Copacabana is more of an active beach sports place. Especially volleyball.
On any other beach, all those volleyball courts would be interfering with the tan maintenance crowd. Not on Copacabana! The beach is so big, that there's room for everyone.
And everyone is on the beach. Young, old, fat, skinny, ugly, gorgeous, it doesn't matter. And in Rio, "proper attire" usually means "no shoes, no shirt, no problem". Granted, there are some folks we'd all probably rather have go put on a few more layers of clothes, but all those stunning young bronze beauties strolling around in little more than a snippet of twine make it all worthwhile...
I've heard it said that "if you can't get laid in Rio, you're dead." I don't think that's really quite true. I have a feeling that there are some people there who might not draw the line before necrophilia. Certainly, everything seems to go, and nobody was giving so much as a second glance to same sex couples strolling hand in hand along the strand.
Sex on the beach is all fine and good, but some of us like drinks too.
One of the reasons I love the Copacabana is that a beautiful, wide, tile sidewalk runs the entire length of the beach, from Fort Copacabana at the tip of Aproador, all the way down to Fort Leme, standing guard over beach party central. Every 50 yards, you'll find another small sidewalk cafe cabana, with chairs and umbrellas offering rest and respite. These places can all be counted on to offer refreshment, but they vary from stand to stand. About a third of them offer draft beers (chopp). Ice cold draft beer, on the beach! Only in Brazil! At least half offer mixed drinks --- especially fresh caipirinhas. In fact, the best caipirinha I ever tasted was from one of the stands on the Copacabana (or maybe it just seemed like the best because it was a warm sunny day with a steady breeze blowing in from the sea and a steady stream of impossibly beautiful young carioca women strolling by, so tantalizingly close, yet so out of reach).
Life is good on the Copacabana. And it stays good, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Copacabana is safe, and people are out walking at all hours of the night, and at least half the cafes are serving those chilly draft beers and fresh made caipirinhas no matter what the hands on the clock say. Thirsty at 4:30am? No problem! Not when you're on the Copacabana!
If there's a downside to Copacabana, it has to be that I have to work for a living, and my job isn't pouring beer at a beachside cabana on the Copacabana. Oh, all right, so maybe it does get a little bit cloudy once in a while, and maybe it does occasionally get too chilly for all those gorgeous super-super models to strut in nothing more than a string bikini, but fortunately those days are rare. And if you really, really press me to come up with cons, I'll admit that those guys selling fake "RIO 2004" license plates and maps of Brazil do get a bit annoying after the 57th one in a row comes by to hawk his two wares.
I could hang out on the Copacabana for the rest of my life and never need to see another beach. The sand is still softer and whiter in Cancun, but the attitude and the mood of the Copacabana, and the huge mix of people, and the way that the whole neighborhood focuses on the beach, just all team up to make this place, in my opinion, the Coolest Beach in the World (at least I have never, in my life, experienced an overall cooler place to be).
The Neighborhood...
Copacabana is more than just sand though. It's an entire neighborhood where people live and work. It is a very "alive" kind of urbanscape with trendy art-deco style apartment buildings bumping along next to modern high-rise hotels. Copacabana probably boasts a hundred or more hotels, at least a couple hundred restaurants, and all the shops, banks, and services that make up any liveable urban neighborhood.
There are two streets to get to know: Avenida Atlantica and Avenida Copacabana.
Avenida Copacabana is the Emperor of beach-front main drags. It runs along the entire length of the beach. I love Copacabana because the folks in Rio were smart enough to keep the hotels off the beachfront. It makes the beach SOOOOO much more inviting and stunning when it's all public and open. Most of Copacabana's most popular hotels line the opposite side of Avenida Atlantica. So do the most popular restaurants and bars.
But there are a lot of things you'll never see as you walk up Avenida Atlantica. There's almost no stores. No banks. No flower shops. No newsstands. To find these kinds of places, you want to stroll along Avenida Copacabana, which runs parallel to Avenida Atlantica, but about 2 blocks inland.
You might never see an ATM on Avenida Atlantica, but you won't go more than a block on Avenida Copacabana without seeing dozens of the suckers. Unfortunately, not every ATM in Brazil will work with every ATM card issued by a U.S. bank. For what it's worth, I found that my Cirrus/Plus network card worked most reliably at the networked ATMs in Banco do Brasil and HSBC branches (not every ATM is networked --- some seem to work only for local account holders).
There are also quite a few good, affordable restaurants on Avenida Copacabana, including some of the popular churrascaria buffets that charge by the kilo.
Where You Want to Stay...
Lots of hotels in Copacabana. LOTS. Unfortunately, some of 'em look a little rundown to me, and aren't places I'd probably want to spend a week with my kids. Easy enough though to find really good hotels, including some that are absolutely world class luxury properties. How nice you want is just a question of how deep your pocketbook might be. Naturally, the better properties right on Avenida Atlantica tend to be the most expensive, though even those are shockingly affordable compared to prices at equivalent properties anywhere in the U.S. or Europe.
In my opinion, the best hotel in Copacabana, and an indisputably 5-star property, is the Copacabana Palace. It is the premier address in all of Rio de Janeiro. If you demand opulence, then you demand the Copacabana Palace.
Down a notch, but still unquestionably excellent properties, are two that I would consider to be 4-1/2 star hotels. These include the Rio Pestana Atlantica and the J.W. Marriott.
Slightly down a notch, are several still excellent properties that are comfortable, elegant, but perhaps missing an amenity or needing a bit of clean up to make it into the next higher category. These are places that could offer quite a good bang for the buck if you get a good rate at them. In this group, I'd consider Le Meridien, the Luxor Regente, the Sofitel, and the Rio Othon Palace.
All of the hotels I mentioned are on Avenida Atlantica. If you go a block or two off Atlantica, you can save even more bucks while still getting excellent accomodations. See my review of the Luxor Continental for an example of what you can get if you're willing to walk 20 yards.
Where You Want to Eat...
Tons of great restaurants in the Copacabana area too. If it's not enough for you, you're also a hop, skip, and jump from Ipanema, where there's yet another ton of great restaurants.
Eating well in Rio is easy. It's a lot harder to eat badly, especially considering that the whole Copacabana area is mercifully free of crummy U.S. corporate chain grease pits. Real restaurants with real food for real humans, that's what you find in Rio, that and low bills when the check comes.
If you want French, or Spanish, or Italian, or Portugese, or Chinese, or whatever kind of cuisine, you can find it in Copacabana. Me? Well, I'm in Brazil, so I figure the thing to do is to eat like a Brazilian.
Brazilians are almost as big on grilled meats as Argentinians and Texans are. If you have an appetite as big as Brazil itself, then you want to pop in at a churrascaria where grilled meats are king --- especially spits of chicken, lamb, beef, or whatever you want. Huge portions and all you can eat buffets are as common as the pay-by-the-kilo deals at some of these places.
Big steaks are the order of business at restaurants that call themselves rodizios, but even if you're the kind of person who prefers their grilled meats more along the lines of chicken breasts or grilled fish, you're in the right place because all of the rodizios seem to a wider variety of meats than just steaks, but steaks are undisputably king. Beef. It's what's for dinner!
Except on Saturdays. Brazilians love their feijoada on Saturdays. The exact recipe varies, but the most traditional recipe seems to incorporate things like beef tongues and animal ears, and things that I find more interesting to look at when I see 'em in the grocery store than interesting to actually eat. To each his own. If you gotta have feijoada no matter what the day, there's a restaurant called Casa de Feijoada that can satisfy your craving no matter what the calendar says...
Bon apetit!
What You Want to See and Do...
Being in Copacabana is a great location. Easy to get to anything you want to see and do in the greater Rio de Janiero area. Heck, the cable cars up the Sugarloaf (Pao de Acucar) are just a 5-minute taxi ride through the tunnel and around the corner...
But you don't have to ever leave the beach area if you don't want to. Most folks would find plenty to spark their interest right in Copacabana.
If you just have to do some tours, there are always the twin forts that anchor either end of the Copacabana. Fort Copacabana is the obvious sightseeer's delight. They have a killer location right on the point at Aproador, and those massive 16 inch guns are quite the sight to see. The museum itself is fascinating too, and you can go through the bunkers below the point and see how soldiers lived and worked. There are some nice little coffee shops at the fort too, and it's a wonderful place to just sit at a sidewalk cafe under the shade of a towering oak tree, sipping a hot strong cup of Brazilian espresso.
At the other end of Copacabana is a mountain called Morro Leme which is topped off by another gun battery. The fort here is very much an active military base, and the mountain itself doubles as a natural wildlife reserve and an active army post. You can visit the place on Saturdays and Sundays from about 9am to noon, then again from around 2 to 5pm. It will cost about a dollar to get in, then you're on your own to hike the circular trail that winds its way up to top. Once there, the views of the harbor and the Copacabana beaches are simply spectacular.
Where You Want to Be...
Do you breath? Does your heart still beat?
If so, you're the kind of person who would love being in Rio, and you'd especially love being on the Copacabana. It's a laid-back place where everything goes, and where a guy can get a drink and ogle the babes anytime every day of the year. The babes in turn can ogle the buff Adonises who stroll the beach. You can dress to the nines, or wear next to nothing, either way, you'll fit in just fine on the Copacabana. It's an awesome place where the living is easy and the beach is second to none.
Copacabana is famous as the world's greatest New Years Eve party, but all those fireworks going off on a warm summer evening aren't even the beginning of what makes the Copacabana such a wonderful place to be. Every beach has its own feel and mood, and for my money, Copacabana is the most sophisticated and tolerant, yet totally warm and welcoming kind of place I can imagine.
What a brave new world to have such beaches in it!
Recommended:
Yes
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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