For its partisans, Rio is the joie de vivre capital of Brazil, the greatest city in Latin America or simply the “Cidade Maravilhosa” (“Marvelous City”). Whether or not you agree, Rio certainly does flaunt a distinctive and exotic personality based largely around a cult of the sun. The true Carioca is said to be someone who goes to the beach “before, after or instead of work.” On a sunny Saturday afternoon, half a million people descend on Copacabana and its adjacent cafés, bars and restaurants along the Avenida Atlântica. Rio is not a destination for historical and cultural sightseeing in the conventional sense. In fact, architecturally, the city often seems like a ramshackle sprawl of concrete, a place of majestic disarray and intermittent squalor, though the downtown area does possess one or two striking churches. But from the summit of the Corcovado, the panorama is truly astonishing. Perhaps no other city in the world has a setting of equivalent splendor.