Thursday 18 September, 2014

Last day in Rio so we took the optional tour to the Summer Palace of the Emperor Dom Pedro II in Petropolis. Our tour guide is a fountain of information and as he majored in History he speaks about history with a real passion and has lots of little tales to tell. It was a beautiful drive to Petropolis. The town of Petropolis came about because people thought that you caught Yellow Fever from the river water, so they started moving away from the city. And of course the royal family had to be looked after, so the palace was built. I think it only took a couple years to build, which was in those days, quite a feat. We weren't allowed cameras in the palace, and even had to put on special shoes so that we would not scratch the floors. The rooms were quite amazing - the ceilings were at least 6-7 metres high and so detailed in the living, dining and office rooms. It even had sky lights which was unusual in those days.
At the back of the Palace was the carriage house that had a cog rail train, the Emperors carriage and a variety of other carriages.
We walked down to the Cathedral and passed several English Language Schools. The children learn English in schools but after school they go to either the British English School or the American English School depending upon what they want to learn. (Most schools have primary and secondary in the one school, with secondary children going to school in the morning so they can work in the afternoon and Primary kids going in the afternoon.
The Chrystal Palace was built for the people to sing in, situated in a lovely park.
We had dinner on the terrace at the hotel, a bit windy but still nice. After dinner, Jan, Michelle and I caught a taxi into town to go to "The girl from Impanema" show. It ended up being in an upstairs bar where people sang to a small audience. It was interesting but not what we thought it was going to be. Late night...we went to bed at 1:30 and we were to have our luggage out the door at 4am!