The bohemian Santa Teresa and the nightlife hub of Lapa are two of Rio de Janeiro’s most atmospheric neighborhoods. With this walking tour, explore some of the city’s most photo-worthy spots, including the Ruins Park, the vibrant Selarón Steps, and Cinelândia. Take in the views as you ride the local tram, stroll through the Passeio Público, and visit the legendary Confeitaria Colombo café.

Three Rio neighborhoods on one tour: Santa Teresa, Lapa, and Centro
Travel like a local as you ride the tram to Santa Teresa
Tri-lingual guide with commentary in English, Spanish, and Portuguese
Hassle-free pickup and drop-off at your Rio South Zone hotel

What's Included

Guided half-day walking tour
All Fees and Taxes
Santa Teresa tram ride included
Entrance fees
Professional guide with live tour commentary in English, Spanish & Portuguese.
Hotel pickup and drop-off from the main hotels in (Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, Leme) hotels
Comfortable air-conditioned vehicle

Food and Drinks (available for purchase at Confeitaria Colombo)
Gratuities (optional)

Meeting and Pickup

You can head directly to your preferred meeting point, or request pickup.

Meeting points

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Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Start time

09:00 AM

End point

This activity ends back at the meeting point.

Pickup details

Pickup and drop-off included from the main hotels in South Zone (Copacabana, Leme, Ipanema e Leblon). Passengers not staying at one of the hotels in our pick-up list will be informed of the nearest pickup point and time. Pick up from the hotel takes place before the start time of the activity. If you do not receive confirmation of your departure time, please contact us.

What To Expect

Station of Santa Teresa trams

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Arcos da Lapa

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Santa Teresa

20 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Centro Cultural Municipal Parque das Ruinas

30 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Escadaria Selaron

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Passeio Publico

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Cinelandia

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Confeitaria Colombo

15 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Not wheelchair accessible
Infants must sit on laps
Not recommended for travelers with back problems

Not recommended for pregnant travelers
No heart problems or other serious medical conditions
Most travelers can participate
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 100 travelers

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.

Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.
This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. If it’s canceled because the minimum isn’t met, you’ll be offered a different date/experience or a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Reviews

4.5

129 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travelers.

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Showing 1-10 of 129 reviews

Highly recommended experience

susan_s, Apr 2024

We enjoyed the tram to Santa Teresa and wondering around there The Salron stairs were a great vibe and fun and felt like the Rio I was expecting Our guide ensured he could see us at all times Enjoyed our day very much

Great tour covering some interesting parts of the city

Julie_G, Apr 2024

This was an excellent tour and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Manuel is a great guide who is pleasant, friendly and very knowledgeable about the city. The tour was well planned and enabled us to see a variety of parts of the city that are not included in some of the other tours. The street car ride was lovely as was the stop at the Cafeteria Colombo. All in all a great tour and well worth the price.

Must do half day tour

Duncan_M, Mar 2024

Fabulous half day tour with varied attractions. Very knowledgeable guide. Bit of walking involved but nothing over strenuous.

Artsy Rio

Carole_G, Mar 2024

So enjoyed the entire tour from the streetcar ride to a snack stop at the iconic Confeitaria Colombo. Our guide Manuel was professional and inclusive. The Selarón Steps were definitely a must see although daunting when gazing downward. I needed some reassurance and assistance to make the descent and it was kindly provided. The vehicle was comfortable and driver was kind and adept. My husband and I highly recommend this tour when in Rio.

A fun and interesting walking tour

GWENDOLEN_B, Mar 2024

We loved the Selaron steps, the tram ride and the walk through St Terese. Our guide Manuel was very knowledgeable and affable. It all went smoothly from pick up to drop off.

Spectacular

Mary_J, Mar 2024

Our guide, Manuel, was warm, friendly and very well informed. Sites were very interesting- an in depth appreciation of local neighborhoods.

Nice Culture Tour

Helen_W, Feb 2024

It was a nice half day tour to learn and see some culture of Rio. Our guide was professional, friendly and caring. Will recommend.

A Failed Tour: A waste of time.

Patricia_C, Feb 2024

First of all, the tour guide was incompetent using the microphone. She held the mic too close to her mouth and there was constant static., causing her voice to be garbled. My partner compressed the connections of the mic while she was off the van which briefly decreased the static & garbling, but after a few seconds it went back to being full of static. Secondly, her English was fair at best. After the Spanish speaking came on board she devoted 90% of the tour to their language and we got tidbits of explanation after she was done speaking to them. There two attraction closures due to the "Brazilian season." Which occurs every single year. Why didn't the tour operators know this ahead of time. The first cancellation was the tram ride, which was the Main attraction.The first annual closure was the tram ride, which was the main attraction we were looking forward to. The second cancellation due to the annual seasonal event was a museum which we trudged up the hill for ~ 500 meters : only to find out it was closed at the gate. we then had to turn around and retrace our steps which was wasted time and effort. Finally, we lost track of her on the solarian steps as the Spanish speaking tourists were constantly delaying her. We recommend you find a competent tour guide. Her poor performance and neglect reflects poorly on Viator . This was a one time opportunity for us which cannot be done over. We request a refund.

Unorganized and unprofessional

YenChi_C, Feb 2024

Driver was almost an hour late to pickup, while support kept telling me they’re close. The guide was not very professional with him being more concerned about finding his missing umbrella (it was raining and it was taken) and was chatting with certain people in the group about his how he had to pay 50 reals for a broken umbrella in an open area while 2 of the members of the group didn’t even have an umbrella. He kept looking for umbrellas in every store and when we did we spent about half an hour doing nothing at the store at which point I left the tour and did everything myself.

Lots of fun things too see but lacking in information

Kerry_B, Jan 2024

This was an enjoyable tour and took in a lot of the key sites that we wanted to visit. Ideal if you're new to the city and want to get a quick overview of things - however, we were disappointed in the amount of information that we got from our guide. We've done other walking tours in other cities (both paid and free) and they have provided a lot more background information about the city, its people and also the area or site we are visiting. This could just have been an issue with our guide, as the other reviews on this have generally been good.

Great tour - poor admin.

Ilse_v, Dec 2023

The tour itself was fantastic - Rosangela was a super enthusiastic knowledgeable guide and went out of her way to ensure everyone had a great tour. The admin behind the tour was however extremely poor - we were staying in Lapa and our hotel was included in the drop down menu for a pick up, which we selected. The evening before the tour we were advise that the ONLY pick up would be in Copacabana and that if we were not on time, it would be taken as a now show and we would not qualify for a refund . The local company was unhelpful and refused to budge, telling us to take the pick up question up with Viator. Net result is we had to Uber from Lapa (less than 1 km from the Seleron steps) to Copacabana only to be brought all the way back to Centro (down the road from Lapa) to start the tour at the tram station. Not only is there a lack of logic in this, but it was inconvenient, time consuming and cost us an Uber trip which should not have been necessary. And then to top it all - we landed up waiting at least 20 minutes for other people at the pick up point in Copacabana!

A Must-See Part of the City

Alex_D, Dec 2023

We had the most wonderful time with Carla with a C and the driver Michael. They were so friendly, accommodating, and informative. We saw so much in such a short period of time - the trolley was almost meditative as we made our way through the unique neighborhood, then we stopped at so many wonderful places and learned some of the history of the area. All the stops were interesting and beautiful. I would recommend this trip to everyone.

Don’t Get DANILO as Guide

Brianna_G, Dec 2023

We recently did the tour while in Rio. The pick you up from your hotel then the journey begins. Let me start by saying we enjoyed the places we stopped on the tour but not guide. Our guide, Danilo, was the worse guide in the history of guides. He gave minimal descriptions and we had to ask about everything we were looking at. The quality of the vehicle was nice and they drove us around because the weather was too hot. Overall, I recommend taking yourself to ride the train and taking an Uber to the Steps. I will NOT book this tour unless they give me another guide NOT DANILO.

Santa Teresa

Sangalli_F, Dec 2023

Santa Teresa was very very nice and interesting. Our guide was perfect: very well prepared and funny

Great Experience

Mary_N, Nov 2023

We had a wonderful time! We recommend this tour to anyone. We went on a Tuesday morning so everything was less busy. We were picked up right on time from our hotel and our guide was delightful!

Excellent very enjoyable

Vernon_B, Nov 2023

Our guide Newton was very informative and enthusiastic Great trip Would recommend to see areas of downtown and Santa Theresa including trolley ride and Escalaron

The best part of the tour...

Serena_C, Nov 2023

The best part of the tour was our awesome guide Danilo Fontes; he’s very knowledgeable, nice, flexible, and speaks good English and Spanish. He explained many details of the places we visited, was considerate with the extreme temperatures during the tour, and was kind when we asked to spend a little more time on a location or another. We definitely recommend a tour with him!

Canceled the day before. Disappointed.

Giovanna_G, Nov 2023

The trip was canceled in less than 24 hours because I was the only person who booked it on Sunday 11/12 so I was not able to book something else.

Nice experience

pierluigimercurioit, Nov 2023

Nice experience around the centre of Rio. The guide was helpful and gave us a lot of informations about the places we visited

Trolley bus and walking tour

Emma_D, Oct 2023

Highlight was the ride on the historic trolley bus. Our guide was very informative on the walking tour. Recommend this to see a beautiful historic area of Rio