RIO DE JANEIRO · BRAZIL

Few cities have geography as an argument. Rio has it.

Rio de Janeiro is a city that offers itself completely at first glance, and reveals itself fully only to those who know how to interpret it. Mountains that plunge directly into the sea. A bay that frames the city as if it had been designed. A light that changes every hour and turns every viewpoint, every facade, every cobblestone street into something different from what it was an hour before. What we do is turn that geography into a narrative with meaning, rhythm, and real depth. As a DMC in Rio de Janeiro, ANDINA by Rixner designs incentive trips and corporate events between the sea, the mountains and the music of the city.

LOOKOUTS

The iconic, seen without haste

Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain are landmarks that we are giving new meaning to.

Climbing up to the Christ at dawn, before the crowds arrive, with the city still blanketed in mist and the bay barely visible below, is an experience of scale that defies all description.

Sugarloaf Mountain at sunset, when the light turns Guanabara Bay into something that seems unreal, closes a day with a visual power that stands on its own.

The classic, when accessed at the right time, goes from touristy to memorable.

NEIGHBORHOODS · HISTORY · CULTURE

The historic city

Rio's historic center holds a cultural density that few visitors get to see.

— Santa Teresa

With its colonial houses clinging to the hillside. The neighborhood was built on one of Rio's hills in the late 19th century, when the carioca elite escaped there seeking altitude and a cooler climate than downtown. Hence the colonial mansions and the sloping cobblestone streets, many of them dead ends for vehicles.

— The Limpet

With its 18th-century aqueduct arches. At night, the neighborhood is the epicenter of Rio's musical life: bars with live samba, gafieiras (traditional dance halls), and the Selarón steps—the mosaic of colored tiles that the Chilean artist Jorge Selarón covered over more than two decades—just a few blocks away.

— Rua do Lavradio

World Heritage. The street preserves one of the best-preserved colonial and neoclassical architectural fronts in downtown Rio, with Portuguese tile facades dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. Today it functions as a hub for antique shops, galleries, and design studios, and once a month it turns into an open-air antique fair, with live music spilling out from the bars.

MUSIC · ORIGIN

Samba. The pulse that Rio carries within

Samba was born from the fusion of African rhythms of Bantu origin with early 20th-century urban popular music.

The Pedra do Sal, in the Saúde neighborhood, was the meeting point for that community and today hosts street samba circles with no stage: the circle is formed between whoever plays and whoever listens.

The samba schools they rehearse all year round outside of the Carnival season, and those rehearsals, open to the public, show the work behind the spectacle seen in the Sambadrome in February.

In Rio, the samba doesn't end when the music ends.

Meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions

One destination, one encounter:
Rio de Janeiro