Brazil - five top travel destinations between the Atlantic coast and the Amazon

For many, Brazil is THE dream destination, and quite rightly so. Here are our 5 tips: You shouldn't miss out on these destinations on your trip to Brazil! We list them in no particular order.

Rio de Janeiro is located in the southwest of Brazil, directly on the coast facing the South Atlantic. With over six million inhabitants in the urban area and over 13 million in the metropolitan region, "Rio" is the second largest city in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro was also the country's capital between 1822 and 1960.

The landmarks of Rio de Janeiro include

the steep, 396-metre-high Sugar Loaf Rock ("Pão de Açúcar") on the Guanabara Bay,
the monumental Cristo Redentor statue on the summit of the 719-metre-high Corcovado mountain, which you can reach by taking the Corcovado cable car, and
the miles of sandy beaches in the Copacabana and Ipanema districts.
Rio de Janeiro is also a city of art and culture. Rio de Janeiro is home to numerous museums worth seeing: the Museu Chácara do Céu exhibits masterpieces by Matisse, Monet, Modigliani and Picasso, among others. The Museu Histórico Nacional, which was opened in 1922 in buildings dating back to the 16th century, displays exhibits from Brazilian history, particularly from the colonial period (up to 1822).

One of Rio de Janeiro's main attractions is the parade of samba schools during Carnival, which begins in Rio on the Friday before Ash Wednesday. Soccer fans get their money's worth at the world-famous Maracanã Stadium.

São Paulo, 360 kilometers southwest of Rio de Janeiro, is Brazil's most important financial and economic center. When visiting São Paulo, you will immediately notice the numerous skyscrapers that dominate the city's skyline with their heights of up to 170 meters (Mirante do Vale and Edifício Italia).

The historical buildings worth seeing include

the Benedictine monastery Mosteiro de São Bento, built in 1598,
the Teatro Municipal opera house, opened in 1911 and one of São Paulo's landmarks,
the Antiochian Orthodox cathedral Catedral Metropolitana Ortodoxa de São Paulo, which was modeled on the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and
the Roman Catholic Catedral Metropolitana de São Paulo (Catedral da Sé), which is considered one of the world's largest neo-Gothic church buildings.

After the big cities on the Atlantic coast, explore the impressive natural landscapes of Brazil's interior.

Around 2,700 to 2,800 kilometers northwest of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro is Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. Manaus was built at the confluence of the 2,250-kilometer-long Rio Negro and the Amazon, the longest and most water-rich river in the world at 7,000 kilometers.

Backpacker tours into the rainforest are offered from Manaus. A trip by boat or bus takes you to the remote small town of Presidente Figueiredo. From here, you can explore an almost untouched natural rainforest landscape with many rivers and waterfalls.

Visit the natural spectacle of the Iguaçu Falls in the south of Brazil, on the border with Argentina. With a total width of 2.7 kilometers, the Cataratas do Iguaçu are considered the world's largest waterfalls, consisting of over 200 smaller and larger falls. Every second, up to 7,000 cubic meters of water plunge over 40 to 90 meters into the depths - often in two to three stages.

The species-rich Pantanal, one of the world's largest wetlands, stretches over 230,000 square kilometers in the southwest of Brazil, bordering the neighboring countries of Bolivia and Paraguay.

The Pantanal consists of a river plain (on average only 95 meters above sea level) in which many freshwater and some salt lakes have formed. Still largely untouched by human influence, the Pantanal is characterized by an extraordinary wealth of species.

The best time of year to visit the Pantanal is between May and September - when there is no rainy season and the temperatures are moderate.