On your afternoon tour to Sugar Loaf Mountain, you'll drive through downtown Rio, past its fine collection of colonial-style Portuguese buildings. You'll pass traditional Cinelandia square and its fine public buildings, the Municipal Theater, National Library and National Museum of Fine Arts. You'll then pass the Flamengo Park leisure precinct en route to Rio's Urca neighborhood at the foot of the distinctively shaped Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Then it's into a glassed-in cable car for the exhilarating ride up Urca Hill for sky-high views of Guanabara Bay and its islands, the Rio-Niteroi Bridge and Corcovado Hill, topped by the famous Art Deco statue of Christ the Redeemer.

From Urca Hill you'll take a second cable car up to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain (1299 feet/395 meters) for splendid views of Copacabana Beach, the Santa Cruz fortress and the beaches of Niteroi.