I am not a beach kind of person and yet Rio offers what is probably the ultimate in beach culture. Nothing can quite prepare you for the Brazilian beach. But for a real flavour of the place head away from the sand and explore the centre of the city — Centro — for both a taste of the city’s rich past and its new, brash and bold future.

In Centro you will find fine, public squares with wonderful buildings and some superb museums. The squares are not yet ruined by over-development and by MacDonalds and are great places to while away the time. The centre of the old town is focuses around the Rua Carioca — Carioca being the name for a person from Rio. This wonderful area of fine and crumbling architecture is being restored but has not yet been touristified into submission! Just a few minutes from Rua Carioca is an area of fine buildings and narrow pedestrianised streets that, in Europe, would be crammed full of expensive shops and boutiques. But here these streets are simple crammed full of shops for the ordinary folk of Rio. They are called locally a bazaar and there is much of that feel about the place.

A Rough Guide or or Lonely Planet will provide you with all of the help you need — the Rough Guide’s walking tour is a must. Take the usual sensible precautions and you will feel safe, secure and very happy!

Finally, one area to mention is Santa Theresa, sometimes referred to as the Montmatre of South America. Santa Theresa is built on a wonderful hillside site with wonderful views. It features some wonderful atmospheric buildings and is home to a fascinating artistic community. You’ll be seeing a lot of photos of Santa Theresa over the next couple of years.

Anyhow, in my next couple of posts I’ll post some photos to help you get a feel for the place.

I’ve never been to Cuba but all of those that have come back saying the same thing. You should go soon, before it is too late. By this the mean that either the wonderful and decaying colonial architecture will go soon; either regeneration will take place or the collapse will become critical. Or, they mean go now because after Fidel nothing will be the same again — and you can read that however you want.

I feel something of the same way about Rio. Rio is a city of the near future. In 2014 Brazil hosts the World Cup and in 2018 Rio is home to the Olympics. International sporting events like this means a lot to politicians. For Sydney the Olympics represented a national coming of age, a celebration of a country that can stand with the best of the world and move forward with pride. Beijing was about making the world stand up and take notice; you can’t ignore the rise of China. London’s Olympic bid is couched in the language of regeneration but the bid was conceived during Blair’s era of cool Britannica. Britain’s bid was meant to symbolise a new confidence and reflect a renaissance in the UK’s cultural life and creative economy.

Brazil is a country that is truly coming of age. It is a republic that is heading on now towards two hundred years of independence. The global politics of recent years has seen Brazil become a national that simply cannot be ignored. It has been admitted as a permanent member of the ‘G’ group of nations and, arguably, should be admitted as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It is a power that is increasingly confident and which follows its own path. In the UN Brazil follows no particular camp or line, confidently developing its policies and alliances to support both its own national interest and the needs and concerns of the developing world.

Over the next couple of years we are likely to hear a lot more about Rio and Brazil in general. As the World Cup approaches I predict that the colour supplements will be full of pieces about the place. While Rio is a centre of tourism much of this at the moment seems to be Brazilian. I’ve no doubt this will change and so I thought I’d write a series of small pieces on the place; these might help people plan their visit. I’m in no way an expert on Brazil and have only visited a couple of times. However, my visits do tend to fit into the kind of two week time frame that many have for their holidays and many trips to Brazil are likely to include a few days in Rio.

Both FIFA and the International Olympic Committee are quite slick at selecting their venues. In selecting Brazil these august bodies (more powerful and wealthy than many nation states) are making it clear how they see the world going!

I shall write a little more about Brazil when I return, but it strikes me as I write that I might just be embarking on the most demanding part of the venture yet. I’m leaving Rio this evening and should get into London tomorrow morning and — all things being well — be back in Birmingham by early afternoon. But we’re being told to prepare for delayed flights, a closed Heathrow and goodness knows what else.

One headline on the Guardian website caught my eye this morning: “2010 set to be the hottest year on record”

Back home in the UK the weather seems to be dominating everything as thick snow has fallen over much of the country. Here in Brazil we may not be suffering with snow, but adverse weather conditions are having quite an impact on our trip.

Originally the plan was to move off from Brasilia and visit one or two other sites before returning to Rio and coming home. But flood conditions — across the whole of the country — have put paid to that. Brazil is suffering unprecedented rainfall across the whole country with the weather now being the number one feature on national and local news, with reports showing amazing scenes of flooding. Normally the weather maps on TV are used to simply predict temperatures and whether it is going to be overcast or not. One of our would-be destinations was on the coast not far from where a luxury holiday complex has been buried as the forest hillsides behind it have simply slipped into the sea — “death in paradise” claims the headlines. Moreover, reports on TV are linking these conditions with unusual weather pattern across the globe; apparently China and South East Asia are having a particularly bad time of it.

A few people have asked whether I’m going to get a chance to do some hiking. There was an option of doing some trail walking near Pirinopolis and area of outstanding beauty and waterfalls but this has been ruled out because of the weather. What I was hoping to do this time around was to research, and hunt out, some good hiking options for the future. There seem to be some very interesting areas to explore, but you do need a guide. You can just turn up in one of these towns and search for a guide but I’d feel more confident in that if my Portuguese was at all functional. I’ve yet to find any hiking/trekking tour companies who operate in Brazil.

It seems odd that Brazil isn’t catered for by trekking companies given that so many specialist tour companies operate across Latin America. I did wonder whether this was something to do with an absence of mountains and high places. Last year, while covering several of the major tourist and destination shows with Bob (for the Outdoor Station) I asked a number of the better operators why nobody operated in Brazil. I was told that this was because Brazil just didn’t see this as important, after all it is now one of the leading economies of the world. However, some of the potential trekking areas are some of the poorest and there would seem to be a lot of potential here. I was told that there are signs of change not least as Brazil is looking to develop ‘green’ tourism. Brazil is a country that is looking to exploit green technologies in a big way and is hoping to become a world leader in green industry.

I shall keep up with my research not least because I shall almost certainly be here again in the next few years. But if any of you have been able to trek or hike here I’d love to hear from you. If any trekking, travel, companies are beginning to operate here — or are planning to do so — then I’d really like to hear from you!

But now I’m back in Rio. The tropical rains that were a feature of our first days in the country seem to have receded a little but the weather is overcast and humid.

There is more time now to explore Rio on foot.The big debate of the day is which is better the Rough Guide or the Lonely Planet. Difficult to call this but I am noticing that LP’s entries are spread all over the place and are difficult to follow in a cohesive way. On the other hand LP’s design and fonts are better to follow.

Steve Mlller thought I might be missing the cold and so he sent this photo of himself outside of the tiny refuge on Foel Goch. Every time I pass here I have a rest and think “I bet this place has saved loads of lives”.

Yes I am missing the cold. For the last two days I’ve been playing tennis at a country club. I suspect there may be no way back …