Niterói: Last day in Rio de Janeiro!

Before leaving Petrópolis, go and try the delicious breakfast at the Doces Húngaros Petrópolis bar. The bar is known in Petrópolis for its quality of breakfast and cakes. The price is not high and the local central. The most sought after dish is the strudel!

After almost two hours of traveling by car, you have arrived in the Niterói area where the first point I recommend you to visit is the most important attraction of the city: the Niterói Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC)! It's a Brazilian contemporary art museum inaugurated on September 2, 1996. The MAC was designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer and immediately became a symbol of Niterói. The museum is intended for works of contemporary art from the 1950s to today. The museum possesses a collection of 1.217 works from the João Sattamini Collection, which constitutes the second largest collection of contemporary art in Brazil. The collection was started in 1966 when Sattamini resided in Italy and contains works by, for example, João Carlos Goldberg, Frans Krajcberg, Tomie Ohtake, Abraham Palatnik, Mira Schendel and Carlos Vergara. In addition to the João Sattamini Collection, the MAC NIT also owns the MAC Collection of Niterói composed of a set of 369 works donated by the various artists who have exhibited at the Museum such as Felippe Moraes, Lyz Paryzo and Elle de Bernardini. At MAC NIT there is also a library with about 40.000 documents on Brazilian modern and contemporary art. The museum is characterized by its futuristic facade which allows you to admire the panoramic views from the outside of the museum, from the patio or from inside the museum for a tour of the window ring and which divides this gigantic concrete structure into two shutters. Since 1996 the MAC has also been carrying out educational activities, called Challenges for communication in contemporary art, with the aim of encouraging contemporary artistic production. Built in 1996, it stands out in the landscape making it look like a chalice or a flying saucer. Construction took five years to erect the four-story structure. The MAC Niterói as a first work offers the same architectural structure. The building is made of circular lines just like a 16 meter tall sculpture in an open square, in which the reflecting tank placed at its base and the lighting give it lightness.

Just 15 minutes from the MAC you will find the restaurant that I recommend. This is a Japanese that Brazilians love as a culture and you can try their great Sushi!

Take advantage of the last few hours in Rio de Janeiro to enjoy the sun, the sea and the beach! I recommend you try the nearby Itacoatiara Beach and relax. The beach is only 25 minutes from your restaurant!

Your trip to Rio de Janeiro is coming to end and I suggest you after relaxing in Itacoatiara Beach that you take your car for 40 minutes. You will reach one of the most important fortresses in Rio! You will find La Fortaleza de Santa Cruz da Barra is located on the eastern side of Guanabara Bay, in the Jurujuba district within the municipality of Niterói. The fortress was used, during the period of the Colony and the Empire, to defend the Bay of Guanabara and the entire city of Rio de Janeiro. In 1584, the territory, where the fortress stand, was occupied by the Portuguese and they created a battery for defense. In 1599, the battery mistakenly rejected the fleet of a Dutch admiral, who was considered a corsair. In 1612, under the reign of Philip III of Spain the fortress was renamed Fortaleza de Santa Cruz da Barra and the works for the excavation of five cells in the living rock with dimensions of two 2 m high by 60 centimeters wide would begin. At the beginning of the 17th century, after the Dutch invasion of El Salvador, the defense of Rio de Janeiro was further strengthened. The new improvements of the Fortaleza de Santa Cruz made it what the engineers of the times called it a "construction of a single stone parapet in which the portals that reign all around the square are carved". Further additions to the structure were made at the end of the 17th century by the governor of the Captaincy, Sebastião de Castro Caldas. With the new fire of his artillery and with the support of the Fortaleza de São João frontier, the squadron of 5 ships and 1000 men of the French corsair Jean-François Duclerc was repulsed. Unfortunately, he was unable to repel the invasion and fell to the invasion of the French corsair René Duguay-Trouin, in September 1711. The fortress was occupied by the French until the day of their retreat on November 13, 1711. When Rio de Janeiro became the capital in 1763, both the expansion of the Fortaleza de Santa Cruz da Barra and its firepower were determined to protect the shipment of gold and diamonds from Minas Gerais to Lisbon. During the Empire, with the Decree of 24 December 1831, the reduction of its armament was halved, leaving only one piece of artillery in battery and another under a vault or straw hut. In the context of the diplomatic crisis that goes from 1862 and ends 1865, the defenses of the fortress were strengthened further. Later the Infirmary, Pharmacy and carbon dioxide lighting were installed. In 1912 Colonel Inocêncio Ferreira de Oliveira, responsible for introducing electric lighting in the fortress, ordered the construction of the Chapel of Santa Bárbara. After the restoration works, it preserves an original image of the saint, carved in wood and in life size. The legends have it that there have been several attempts to transfer it to another place but always failed due to inexplicable changes in the sea conditions. Another legend instead tells of how the chapel is the tomb of the young Iracema, daughter of Captain Potyguara, who, in love with a corporal and prevented from living her love for her, threw herself into the sea in December 1906. The Fortaleza de Santa Cruz da Barra today belongs to the Ministry of Defense, under the administration of the Army. Since 2002, publicly funded restoration works have been carried out, which included works for the construction of sanitary wastewater, the recovery of roofs, the restoration of plaster and exterior painting, the waterproofing of the slab of the Patio de Comando and the Salão de Pedras. Inside the fortress you will find forty-two antique artillery pieces, from different eras, distributed among the three batteries. Today it is an attraction that attracts an average of 3.500 visitors per month.

Your trip to Rio is over and it's time for your rental car to come back after days of adventure and rest. You have to go back to the airport for an hour by car and you will already be there!

This is not goodbye because you have still a lot to see in this unique city. After 40 minute walking inside in GIG, i tell you: boa viagem e obrigado pela atenção!