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Panorama des Ipanema Beach

© Ola9

What do you see when you picture Rio? Most likely it’s the Carnival, the hundred thousand annual visitors or the urban canyons of the million strong metropolitan. Or is it the girl from Ipanema?

Nowhere on Earth can you see so much flesh on display than in Rio de Janeiro. Ipanema beach plays a particularly important role in this, even if the “Girls from Ipanema” has now become older, wiser and richer. Luxury shopping lines the Rua Visconde de Piraja and side streets and expensive restaurants and bars rule the nightlife. No wonder then, that Ipanema has become one of Rio’s most expensive areas to live and offers all the trimmings, art galleries, theaters and trendy cafés. During the Carnival, around 15,000 people flood the streets of Ipanema. Though it does offer the obligatory surfers, mini-bikini wearers and other sun worshippers, the beach itself is far less densely packed than its neighbor, Copacabana beach or the Praja do Preppe, an hour drive further south.