Let's face it, in recent years there has been something of the tired old tart about Rio, a city that might serve Testino well: stocked full of tanned, lithe lovelies, but with little to offer of substance. While both Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires come off as dynamic, ambitious and bursting with creative energy, as well as more aggressively urban, Rio dedicates itself to denying the urban; it's a city wedged between beaches and mountains after all. Then again, only the perverse would not make use of these natural advantages. What you get is a city low on cut-and-thrust, but big on the swinging and sensual. And Rio sure does swing.

But this is also a city that's constantly looking to improve itself, which makes for an architectural patchwork of old colonial and its trademark curvaceous modernism. While there may be no plans to rip up, pick up and landfill on a grand scale (as happened between the 1930s and 1960s), and the proposed Rio Guggenheim scheme has floundered, this is still a shifting city, fluid and flighty.
Leblon, ever tony, gets tonier, with Rua Dias Ferreira emerging as the new restaurant and retail hot-spot, and each new arrival pushing to look sharper and sleeker than the last. Lapa's old crumbling colonial mansions have been turned into swaying samba venues or antique and mid-century furniture stores. Sometimes both at the same time. It's gentrification as only Rio could do it and, for the moment, it's a whole heap of fun.

THE CITY AT A GLANCE

Catedral Metropolitano

Big, black, brutal, but undeniably beautiful, Rio's massive modern cathedral, completed In 1976, can hold a congregation of 20,000.

Santos Dumont Airport

Nobody could claim that Rio's domestic airport isn't convenient. Flights in and out offer stunning views over the city.

Museu de Arte Contemporanea

Oscar Niemeyer's 'flying saucer' in Niteroi has proved a late-career crowd-pleaser.

Parque do Flamengo

Roberto Burle Marx was landscape architect by appointment to modern Rio. The Parque do Flamengo is cleverly landscaped landfill, stretching from the airport to Botafogo Bay.

Urca

An oasis of sleepy, shaded streets and lovely early 20th-century architecture, best known as the neighbourhood beneath Sugar Loaf.

Sugar Loaf

The second most famous mountain in the world, and one of a series of impossibly lush, soft-edge mounds that surround Rio.

Leme

A mile-long strip of beach at the north end of Copacabana, popular with families, favela boys (generally well-behaved) and fishermen.

Copacabana Beach

The most famous beach in the world is a bit of a dump. But it's also 8km of stunning white sand and fascinating beach life.

Rio De Janeiro General View

Carnaval, in Rio De Janeiro

A view of the Copacabana Beach.

Cristo Redentor, in Corcovado mountain. One of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Sugar Loaf

Hotel Copacabana Palace

Ipanema Beach

Separated from Ipanema by the Jardim de Ala, Leblon's streets are calm, cool and tree-lined, while Rua Dias Ferreira is about the smartest strip in the city, boasting restaurants such as Zuka and Sushi Leblon (see p054) and boutiques like the Isabela Capeto outlet (T 2540 5232).

Rio's downtown and its commercial and financial engine. Architecturally, it's a mix of the ultra-modern, the modernist and the old Colonial, but if Rio has a historic heart, it is Praça XV de Novembro. Most museums and public buildings are here.

The saltwater lagoon that gives Lagoa its name is stunning, with its backdrop of Corcovado, Cristo Redentor andmountains. The lagoon is looped by upmarket apartment blocks and a popular cycling/jogging track. At night, crowds are drawn to the food and drink kiosks, as well as the, often open-air, restaurants.

Copacabana might have the curves, but Ipanema is the beach to be seen at, particularly Posto 9, from mid-afternoon onwards, where the beautiful people watch the sun set. In the 1960s, the area was a bohemian haunt; now, it's home to the swankiest bars, fanciest restaurants and the most expensive real estate.

The opening of the Copacabana Palace in 1923 announced the arrival of this district as an international resort. But by the 1970s, it had started to become a victim of its own success. Now, it is a tourist trap and the beach road, Avenida Atlanta, is lined with restaurants happy to take advantage of visitors straight off the plane. The beach itself is perfect, but Copacabana is due for rehabilitation.

With its rickety trams (bonde) and streets full of fading mansions, tumbling down cobbled streets on a hill, high above the city, Santa Teresa is pretty, verging on cute. But, just like Lapa, it still has some edge. It's more bohemian than Lapa, with a significant artistic community. Now that it's becoming a tourist draw, a number of small hotels are popping in the area.

Just down the hill from Santa Teresa lies Rio's up-and-coming quarter, Lapa. Its fine 19th-century mansions fell into disarray with the exodus of the Carioca elite to the beaches. In the 1920s, it had a reputation as Rio's Montmartre, bohemians and artists mixing with hookers and hard men. Today; it's being revitalised as a nightlife draw. Yet the buildings remain shabby and the clientele a mixed bag: the Leblon cool crowd and middle-aged couples looking to samba the old-fashioned way.