Living Life Grand Size

IT WAS PURELY BY CHANCE THAT A CITY SO MAGNIFICENT CAME UP IN A SETTING SO MAGICALLY CLOSE TO NATURE. AMIT DIXIT SOAKS IN SOME SOUTHERN COMFORT ON THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS BEACHES OF RIO DE JANEIRO

- Amit Dixit

Would you fly 14,000 kilometres to get on to a beach? If you had asked me this question before I set foot in Rio de Janeiro, my answer would have been a categorical no. But now that I have seen the light doing a saucy samba on those waters, I am a changed man.

Like Delhi, Rio seems to have a clear preference for spreading horizontally rather than vertically. When it hits a hill, which is often in this neck of the woods, it simply climbs up along the sides. This makes Rio’s topography somewhat unique, and the descent into it utterly dramatic. For a long, almost interminable, duration, the aircraft cruises over the low-lying conurbation. Lushly forested hills appear on either side. There are teasing glimpses of water. And then, finally, we land in paradise.

Even those who haven’t been to Rio have heard about the legendary beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema, the second owing its fame at least in part to the bossa nova jazz classic, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’. (The singers sued the ‘girl’ when she set up a boutique with that name, but the court ruled in her favour.) Predictably, these are the most popular areas for travellers but, since I wanted to get away from it all, I had zeroed in on Barra de Tijuca, a tranquil, upmarket neighbourhood in the western part of the city, for my base. Developed in the middle of the 20th century, it has a distinctly suburban vibe and was planned by the Brazilian architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa, who is best known for his master plan of Brasilia. Indeed, the avenue on which my hotel, the Grand Hyatt Rio de Janeiro, stood was named after this heavyweight.