July 10th, Downtown Rio and the Naval Museum.

Downtown Rio and the Naval Museum.

I had gone downtown on my own to see if there were any opportunities for me to be able to use my new blog skills for a museum here in Brazil. I toured several museums including the National Historic Museum, The Naval Museum and Paco Imperial (the original seat of colonial power). I left my brochures and got emails addresses. I actually got to see the director of the exhibits at the naval museum (a Japanese Brazilian in his 50's). Dang! (like my Texan?) If I thought the City of Austin had a large bureaucracy, it's nothing compared  to The Brazilian Navy (I don't want to even try and imagine it). 

On the way downtown with the bus along the Rio Guanabera Bay shore.

View from Botofogo Beach with Morro da Babilonia in foreground.

The Praca 15 and the Paco Imperial, the original colonial administrative building.

The courtyard and architectural details.

Me in the the Paco Imperial courtyard.

The former National Assembly Building when Rio was the Capital of Brazil.

The National Assembly and one of Rio's early churches.

A mannequin of the Argentine Pope Francis promoting his upcoming visit.

Pope Francis and I having an impromptu meeting. 

Inside the church during a lunch time mass.

A downtown Rio street. at lunch hour.

Some of the old buildings are still there. The National Assembly in background.

Another old downtown Rio church.

Inside of the above Rio church.

Here's a 30 second view of Downtown Rio traffic in front of the Banco Do Brasil building with its extensive art exhibit area.

I returned with Carmencita the next day and we traveled to downtown on the Metro (subway) to see the historic center, the Praca (plaza) 15 de Novembro, Paco Imperial (they had the most sophisticated interactive displays I've seen anywhere) Palacio de Belas Artes (too long a line to get in) and an art exhibit at the impressive Banco do Brasil art exhibit. 

The sub on display.

We decided to visited the Naval Exhibit next to the Praca 15 Square. Brazil is building five new submarines, four conventional and one nuclear (containing a French reactor). The purpose they say is to be able to project naval power and protect their deep sea oil reserves (90% of Brazil's proven reserves) and their sea ways which transport 90% of Brazilian exports. Seems a bit fishy. How can a sub with 200-300-ft depth capabilities protect a 6,000 ft well from being tampered with anything but remote control devices. 

The Brazilian fascination with subs can be traced back to WWII when German subs sank several ships just off the coast (and almost single handily brought Brazil in WWII).

From Wikipedia

In U-507's second she attacked ships along the coast of Brazil, in an inexplicable and shocking attack on a neutral nation's shipping in its own waters which almost single-handily provoked the Brazilian declaration of war on Germany.

The political ramifications of what U-507 and her crew had done off the Brazilian coast were enormous. Brazil went from a neutral favourable to Germany to an enraged opponent in the space of 48 hours, declaring war on Germany and supplying a Brazilian Expeditionary Force to the war in Europe and a squadron of ships to the Atlantic. More importantly, Brazilian Air Force bases were made available to American naval air squadrons, thus denying the U-boats their previous advantage of hiding in Brazilian coastal waters, and giving the Allies air cover across most of the Southern Atlantic, making the job of the U-boats significantly harder. In addition, Germany's standing amongst neutral nations, particularly the formerly pro-German dictatorships of South America, was in tatters, never to recover.

View of the old colonial era docks (recently renovated) from the bridge of Sub Chaser.

With that in mind, I visited the Naval display in downtown Rio just next to old docks. The sub display was very interesting and allowed me to photograph the components that I was familiar with from movies and books (I hadn't been in an actual sub since my school days). Next to it was a sub chaser, also open for tour. 

The engine room.

The battery controls.

The control room with periscope.

The control room.

The control room with sub's steering device at left.

The bunks.

The sub chaser.

Me at the guns.

The sub's periscope, smoke stack, radar and communication devices .

We toured the rest of downtown including the Paço Imperial-Casa dos Governadores (the best interactive displays yet). Even got to speak to the assistant to the director of design. I would have certainly been able to do a great blog guide for them. This was official government administrative building, the colonial mint and has historically renovated and is now an art museum.

A short video of Paço Imperial-Casa dos Governadores.

Banco do Brasil's rotunda.

The municipal Theater.

The opera hose in distorted photo.

We also visited the Rio Opera, the Belas Artes and finally the Banco do Brazil which was hosting a traveling French (Pompadour Center) exhibit. God bless the French! The exhibit, celebrating the role of women artists in the modern era was typically just short of being wacky. If it was in Texas, Perry himself would have cut off the electricity to the museum. We walked around a lot and Carmencita and I returned home to Copacabana by bus (during rush hour, but got a seat) quite tired.