Tijuca Rainforest & Museums: Where Nature Meets Culture

About This Experience

Rio de Janeiro is one of the few cities on earth where you can stand in a genuine tropical rainforest within 20 minutes of downtown. Tijuca National Park — the world's largest urban forest, covering 32 square kilometres within the city limits — was almost entirely destroyed for coffee and sugar plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then almost entirely replanted by hand between 1861 and 1888 in one of the world's first large-scale reforestation projects. The forest you walk through today is a human creation — which makes it, paradoxically, one of the most extraordinary conservation stories of the 19th century.

The Tijuca Rainforest & Museums tour combines four of Rio's most significant natural and cultural sites into a single full-day private experience: Sugarloaf Mountain, Tijuca National Park, the Rio Botanical Garden, and Parque Lage.

The day begins at Sugarloaf — the 396-metre granite peak at the entrance to Guanabara Bay that defines Rio's most recognisable silhouette. Two cable car stages take you to the summit, where the panoramic view encompasses the full sweep of the city: Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer to the west, the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema to the south, the bay opening to the Atlantic to the east. Skip-the-line tickets are included.

Tijuca National Park offers a different Rio entirely. Within the park, paved roads become forest trails, the city noise drops away, and the Atlantic Forest — one of the world's most biodiverse and threatened ecosystems — surrounds you. Wildlife sightings depend on time of day and season but commonly include toucans, marmosets (small primates native to the Atlantic Forest), butterflies in extraordinary variety, and occasionally the agouti and coati visible from the road. Your guide knows the park's rhythms and will position you for the best chances.

The Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro covers 137 hectares and contains over 6,500 plant species from Brazil and around the world, including the famous Imperial Palm Avenue — 134 royal palms planted in 1808 on the orders of the Prince Regent Dom João VI — the extraordinary Victoria amazonica lily pads that reach two metres in diameter, the Atlantic Forest section with native species, and the cactus garden and orchid greenhouse. The garden was founded in 1808 and is one of the oldest scientific botanical institutions in the Americas.

Parque Lage is the final stop — and one of Rio's best-kept secrets. A neo-classical mansion built in the 1920s for Italian businessman Enrique Lage sits at the foot of Corcovado, surrounded by Atlantic Forest with Christ the Redeemer visible above the tree line. The mansion now houses the Rio School of Visual Arts and a famous café — one of the most atmospheric in the city — where you can have coffee in the mansion's central courtyard with the forest and the statue above you. The park trails behind the mansion lead into Tijuca National Park territory.

Not available on Mondays. The tour runs Tuesday to Sunday.

Included: private door-to-door transportation, certified local guide, skip-the-line entrance to Sugarloaf Mountain, Botanical Garden entrance, Tijuca National Park access, and complimentary bottled water. Meals are not included.