Museums—Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Instituto Moreira Salles; Museu Chacara do Ceu; Museu de Arte Contemporanea-Niteroi.

Memorable Meals—An all-you-can-eat barbecue at a churrascaria such as Marius Carne; moqueca, a spicy Bahian seafood dish, at Siri Mole & Cia; feijoada (black-bean stew) at the Casa da Feijoada; fresh seafood at Satyricon; coffee and pastries at the belle-epoque Confeitaria Colombo; a tropical suco at any of the juice stands around the city.

Late Night—The lively bars in Ipanema, Leblon and Copacabana; a quiet drink at one of the outdoor cafes near the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas.

Walks—A Sunday stroll by the beach along Avenida Atlantica in Copacabana or Avenida Vieira Souto in Ipanema; a leisurely walk around the colonial neighborhood of Santa Teresa.

Especially for Kids—The Gavea Planetarium; the Southern Hemisphere's largest meteorite at the Museu Nacional; tropical birds and monkeys at the RioZoo; the canyons and toboggan runs at Rio Water Planet.

With the beginning of the coffee boom in the early 1800s, Rio began to prosper. In 1808, the Portuguese royal family fled from the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and settled in Rio, initiating one of the city's golden ages. For more than 10 years, Rio was the seat of the Portuguese empire, which turned the colonial outpost into a cosmopolitan city. In 1822, when Portugal granted independence to Brazil, the king's son Pedro stayed in Rio and was crowned emperor of Brazil, making him the only reigning monarch in the Americas. As an imperial capital, Rio had a population of more than 100,000 and was one of South America's busiest ports, shipping Brazil's rubber, coffee and sugar to the rest of the world. Over the following decades, the government widened avenues, filled in swamps, eradicated yellow fever and even tore down bothersome hills to make space for construction. The formerly bucolic colonial capital of low, tile-roof buildings and dirt streets increasingly resembled a modern metropolis, and by 1920, its population had swollen to 1 million people.

After World War II, the city was further remodeled to make space for the automobile. A growing middle class began to abandon traditional Zona Norte enclaves for Zona Sul neighborhoods—Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon—that were rendered more accessible by buses, cable cars and automobiles. In 1960, Brazil finished the construction of the new inland national capital, Brasilia, and gradually moved most government offices to the planned city. Though some say Rio has never recovered its lost prestige, it remains Brazil's main tourist destination and an important cultural center.

Legend has it that Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes composed "The Girl from Ipanema" on a bar napkin while sipping a couple of drinks just blocks from the beach at a spot called Bar Veloso, since renamed Garota de Ipanema.

Gavea Rock, the enormous outcropping in the Zona Sul, resembles a gigantic sculpture and allegedly sports ancient inscriptions on one of its sides. Some believe Gavea Rock is the burial place of a Phoenician king, and others believe it to be one of the 12 vortices on Earth.

The section of the beach in Copacabana in front of the Marriott Hotel has long been known for its beach soccer. Nilton Santos, star of the Botafogo club and the national team, who retired in 1964, played regularly on this strip of sand.

Celebrity sightings are common on the beaches of the Zona Sul. Wait long enough, and musician Chico Buarque or the hottest telenovela actress will stroll along. Rarely must they dodge autograph seekers or paparazzi; Cariocas tend to be nonchalant about such encounters.

Fed up with traditional candidates, voters once cast 400,000 votes for a write-in candidate who lived in RioZoo. A chimp named Tiao, which means "Big Uncle" in Portuguese, took third place in the 1988 balloting for mayor of Rio de Janeiro.