[font=Arial]Confeitaria Colombo – Rio de Janeiro[/font]
We had so much fun with the topic “How do you look like”.
Now, why don’t we talk about nice places we like to be in. Show us where do you usually go in the city you live, a place you love. But not the tourist cliché postcards, those we find in tourist guides very easily. Show us one spot you particularly like.
I will start with the lovely tea house and restaurant Confeitaria Colombo, in the heart of downtown Rio de Janeiro, where I like to go for an afternoon tea or for a “feijoada” for a Saturday lunch.
I found this text that explains perfectly well all charm and story of Colombo:
Confeitaria Colombo
Vestige of Rio de Janeiro’s belle époque
by Bill Hinchberger
In February 1952 revelers strutted through the city’s streets singing a coyly risqué Carnaval march entitled “Sassaricando.” Recorded by “Brazil’s starlet” Virginia Lane, it celebrated the “old man at the entrance to the Colombo” – “amazed” at the sight of “the widow, the teenager and the lady... shimmying” as they sauntered past.
Like many commercial establishments in Brazil, the Confeitaria Colombo does not have a doorway. Instead the old man of the lyrics would have loitered in a broad passageway that runs the entire width of the first floor. When today’s visitors step past that same threshold, they enter a living time capsule – a remnant of a Rio de Janeiro gone by, one that now seems charming for its opulent optimism. During this “belle époque,” still the nation’s capital and cultural hub, Rio de Janeiro aspired to something that many locals considered far more essential - to become the Paris of the Americas. Downtown Rio was still considered a cool place to chill. And the president of the republic might very well keep a personal tab at the Confeitaria Colombo.
Founded in 1894 by Portuguese immigrants, the Colombo soon found its history intertwined with that of the capital and, by extension, of the nation. The building has undergone several reforms, but the first floor interior remains pretty much the way customers found it during the 1913 reopening. The style might be described as turn-of-the-century continental flamboyant eclectic. “Confeitaria” literally means confectionary or sweet shop, and the house’s vocation is highlighted by the glass cases near the entrance that display traditional baked goods, sweets and desserts.
Behind the sweets and pastries is an area now dubbed the Bar Jardim. With a capacity of over 100, its tables are topped by marble imported from Italy. Flanking them, covering the walls on both sides, hang eight mirrors. Imported from Antwerp, Belgium, they measure 3.4x4 meters (11x13 feet) and weigh as much as a car - 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) each. Two shattered on the first attempt at transatlantic shipment; another on the second try. Ornate Portuguese tiles cover the floor. The light fixtures are from France.
In 1922 a storage area on the second floor was converted into a tearoom – replete with an atrium that allows upstairs patrons a view of the elegant first floor. In reporting its inauguration, one journalist outdid himself: “Decorated with maximum artistic good taste, the new tearoom... brings together all of the necessary elements to turn the space into a preferred destination for the Rio de Janeiro elite.”
Darn if he wasn’t right. The tearoom soon became popular for afternoon gatherings of the society ladies. Cafes, bars and restaurants were mostly off-limits to refined women, but as a “confectionary,” the Colombo offered them a public oasis. “The upper hall was their meeting place,” said Pereira.
As time passed, the tearoom became a restaurant. Today a self-service buffet lunch is served. Lunch guests can behold the living vestiges of a time when leading figures of Rio de Janeiro society customarily took lunch at the Colombo.
It was published on December 22, 2004 in Brazilmax.com
Hey, my pictures don't show and I don't know what is wrong or how to fix it. Need help !
Munich is so beautifull, makes me want to go visist 
