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- Croissants, Crowds, and Old-World Elegance: Day 2 in Rio
Croissants, Crowds, and Old-World Elegance: Day 2 in Rio
Trying to eat like a local, hike like a tourist, and feel like royalty — all in one city
Jessie Chen
June 22, 2025
With only 3 days in Rio, I kept things simple — sticking to places that were easy to reach and seeing what fun I could find along the way.
Table of Contents
Eating breakfast like a local - Lapa Bakery
If you walk around the city, you would find there are quite a few bakeries that people go for breakfast. This reminds me my experience in Spain and Mexico that breakfast cafes are everywhere. I’m just so fascinated by the cute stores that I told myself “you must sit in a store and eat like a local”, so I randomly picked up one and went.
The food and dessert are both okay in my opinion. I have a feeling that the dessert here wouldn’t meet my expectation. It usually looks good, but when you try, it’s just fine. I had tried 2 more times in other stores, unfortunately, they are just not as good as their looking 🥲 But I was super satisfied with being able to sit in and immerse in the local vibe ☺️
Lapa bakary in Rio, Brazil
A breakfast cafe in Valencia, Spain
Stairs paved with 2000+ tiles - Escadaria Selarón
2 minutes walk from where I stayed. (Hotel Socialtel Lapa) It’s a series of stairs paved with tiles by a Chilean-born Artist - Jorge Selarón, which took 23 years to build with more than 2,000 tiles from more than 60 countries around the world according to wikipedia.
When I visited, it’s kinda crowded. But not that kind that makes you unable to walk. I really like how the artist paved the stairs. If you take a closer look at those tiles, you’ll find out it’s actually very meticulous. Especially when the design includes words, it has to be paved with extra effort so the words can be recognized from distance.
Insanely popular beach - Ipanema Beach
20 minute metro from Escadaria Selarón (from station Glória). When I think of Brazil, I think of its passion; and when I think of its passion, I think of it happening by the beach. It did happen by the beach, in an UNBELIEVABLE way! That was probably the most crowded beach I have ever seen! People didn’t seem to care how close their beach umbrellas were to their neighbors, but just enjoying themselves. Kinda a culture shock for me ha.
Looking towards the right side of the beach, you can see a unique shape of mountains, which is Morro Dois Irmãos. I learned you can actually hike there and get a good view! Maybe next time I’ll try 😎
Take a closer look at the right side, then you know how crowded it is
Elegance enforced cafe - Confeitaria Colombo
20 minute walk from Hotel Socialtel Lapa, a historical cafe that is established in 1894. (Can’t help but murmur that this was the year the Qing dynasty lost to Japan, leading to Taiwan’s annexation the following year. Turns out while Taiwan came under Japanese rule, another part of the world was celebrating the birth of a business providing visually stunning desserts) People said it requires to wait for a while, but I guess because I went around 17:00, which is close to the closing time 18:00, I didn’t have to wait.
Not sure if it’s because what I ordered are not their signatures, I honestly didn’t enjoy my food:/ The decoration is good though and can possibly change your behaviors since you may start to imagine yourself a prince or a princess in that kind of environment 😂. I learned from their website that it can actually serve as a wedding venue. In that case, being a prince or princess isn’t impossible.
The food I got
Stay tuned! Next week I’ll share about Rio’s sunset, which I swear is the most stunning one I have ever seen!
