Cristo Redentor

 

Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) has got to be most famous sight of Rio.   I imagine when the Olympics hit Rio in 2016, there will be a lot of panning shots of Cristo before and after commercial breaks.  It is one of the largest statues of Jesus in the world,  almost 100 feet tall, not including the base it stands on.  And on top of that, it is placed at the top of Corcovado Mountain in the Tijuca Forest.

 

Our tour guide told us the statue was put up in Rio in the 1920s, facing to the bay where ships with new immigrants used to arrive. The reason it was put there was to let all of the people who enter the land know that Brazil is a Christian country.  (At the time a lot of immigrants/slaves/refugees were coming in from various locations practicing other religions.)  The most amazing thing is that this statue was paid for almost entirely by private donations.  Even poor children stopped begging for food and money, and started begging for donations to build the Christ statue!  Visiting Cristo was the first "official" thing we did in Rio, and of course one of the most memorable.  We had mostly clear weather for our view, but apparently that is not all that common.  Someone we talked to said his first 2 visits to Rio he never did get a clear view of Cristo.  How lucky we were.

We hired a Brazilian tour guide for the mornings to take us to the hot spots.  She had all kinds of ideas, including having D & M "hold" the Christ statue.

It was also nice to have someone to take family pictures of all of us.

Apparently this is what the Christ statue usually looks like.

This is what we had for most of our visit.

I adore this picture of H.  She was so taken by Christ the Redeemer.  She still poses like this when people ask her about our trip to Rio.