My return to Rio de Janeiro, 21 years later

Rio de Janeiro is one of our intercontinental destinations with more weekly flights, so it was without surprised that is showed up in my first widebody roster, back in August 2014. And to tell the truth I was anxious to go back to Rio after more than 20 years of absence. Rio de Janeiro used to be one regular holidays destination with my parents, when I was a kid, during the eighties and early nineties. Those were the L-1011 days when I developed a passion for that aircraft in particular and aviation in general. Last time I was there was in 1993.

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Airbus A330-200
CS-TOG

After being dead-headed to Porto and spend there a night, it was time to take our beautiful A330-200 to "Cidade Maravilhosa". With tail number CS-TOG this aircraft was named "Bartolomeu de Gusmão", the same name given to one of our ex-L-1011s (CS-TED). The following pictures were taken at Franciso Sá Carneiro Airport (Porto) before boarding started:

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São Conrado

By that time we used to stay in São Conrado neighbourhood in the southern part of the city. The location was far from ideal since we had to take a cab to Ipanema or Copacabana. Otherwise we would be pretty much isolated in the hotel area. From my room I could spot "Hotel Nacional" an architecture masterpiece by famous Oscar Niemeyer. By then, one could see it was pretty much abandoned and in bad shape. These days it was restored to its previous glory and running as a hotel again.

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Ipanema

Since this was my long-awaited return to Rio, the hotel location didn't prevent me to go to Ipanama Beach and spend there a few hours. The weather wasn't fantastic but it was winter time in the south hemisphere. However, cloudy skies and rainy days became an unfortunate constant everytime I went to Rio de Janeiro all over these years.

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Return Flight

My first layover in Rio de Janeiro wasn't that long. It was around 24 hours before I had to go back to Portugal. So, beside the beach and good food there wasn't opportunity to do much more. Flying on a more modern A330-200 - tail number CS-TOL - we would arrive in Lisbon on a gorgeous summer day.