HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for your trip to Rio!! It’s the perfect location in Barra da Tijuca and a gorgeous view of the mountains, partial beach view, and city lights!
It’s a short 3 minute walk to the main street of Avenida Olegária Maciel where you can find many many local restaurants, bars, a few shops, several large convenience stores, liquor store, etc.
The supermarket Zona Sul is also on this main street about 10-12 minute walk.
You can easily walk across to the beach, walk downstairs for food & drinks & live music at the restaurant Camarote, walk downstairs in the same building for all of your beauty needs to Lassi Beauty (hair, eyelashes, nails, massage), and there is also a barber shop downstairs on the first level as well.
There are several great beach restaurants to try and I recommend K08 for the 20-30 year old crowd (great food & drinks, literally right ON the beach, feet in the sand). Another great one with a similar crowd and food is called Classico. They are both a short 10 minute walk from the apartment.
For beach days I recommend renting the beach chairs and umbrellas from the local beachfront vendors. It’s only R$5/per beach chair ($1 USD) about R$7 per umbrella and the local cocktail called Caiparinha is only about R$25 ($5 USD). So you can easily have an amazing time for a minimal cost!
There is a private gym in the condo as well as a very nice public full gym downstairs in the same building called Iron Box. You can workout on your own with weights/machines/cardio machines, or workout with a trainer, and also CrossFit classes are held there too.
We enjoyed the Barra Shopping mall. They seemed to have a great range of store choices at good prices.
The host was so amazing and accommodating to all of our needs. She is very responsive and goes out of her way to make sure your visit is perfect.
There isn’t a washer/dryer in the apartment unit itself, however there are laundry services in the building for a fairly reasonable price.
During our visit (June - July 2021) there were two neighboring condos being fully renovated so there was loud hammering and drilling starting around 9am on a few mornings (never earlier than 9am which was respectful to the neighbors). It lasts for a couple hours and is only a couple days during the weekdays. So it’s something to be mindful of if you need quiet for work or kids.
This apartment has very strong WIFI, no issues while we were there for 2 months! My husband and I both work remotely as digital nomads so we had about 4-5 electronics connected to WIFI daily with no issues with speed or cutting off. Worked perfectly!
There are also 24/7 security guards at the driveway entrance and also at the front desk reception, so it is very very safe here!! There are always around 3 to 6 security guards at all times and they are very kind, and even waved to us every time we left and arrived back home.
My husband and I will definitely stay here again the next time we visit Rio!! Thank you again Vera!!