Lapa & Santa Teresa Private Walking Tour

Overview

A private walking tour connecting bohemian Santa Teresa and lively Lapa, including a ride on one of the world's oldest tramways and a stop at the colorful Selarón Steps.

Ride the Santa Teresa tram from downtown, passing over the Lapa Arches, before exploring Santa Teresa's cobblestone streets, colonial houses, and hidden viewpoints on foot. The walk ends at the colorful Selarón Steps in Lapa.

Highlights

• Santa Teresa Tram Ride the historic bonde tram over the Carioca Aqueduct (Arcos da Lapa).
• Largo do Guimarães Explore Santa Teresa's gastronomic hub, home to trendy local restaurants and bars.
• Cultural centers & artists' ateliers Visit local galleries and one of the neighborhood's best viewpoints over the city.
• Selarón Steps Finish at the mosaic-tiled staircase connecting Santa Teresa to Lapa.

What Stops Does This Tour Make?

A popular starting point — every Voyzo itinerary is fully customizable, so we'll shape the order and stops around your group.

Important Information

Frequently Asked Questions

About This Tour

A private walking tour connecting bohemian Santa Teresa and lively Lapa, including a ride on one of the world's oldest tramways and a stop at the colorful Selarón Steps. Ride the Santa Teresa tram from downtown, passing over the Lapa Arches, before exploring Santa Teresa's cobblestone streets, colonial houses, and hidden viewpoints on foot. The walk ends at the colorful Selarón Steps in Lapa.

The Carioca Aqueduct — the enormous arched structure locals call the Arcos da Lapa — was built in the mid-18th century for an entirely practical reason: carrying fresh water from the Carioca River down into the growing colonial city. Its 42 arches rise about 64 meters, and once the aqueduct was no longer needed to carry water, the city found a second use for it: in 1896, the structure was converted into a viaduct carrying tram tracks up to the hilltop neighborhood of Santa Teresa — exactly the route this tour follows.

That tram — Rio's bonde, affectionately nicknamed the bondinho — has been running some version of this same route since 1877, making it one of the oldest operating tramways anywhere, though its history hasn't been unbroken: a fatal 2011 accident, caused by brake failure, killed six people and injured dozens more, and the line was fully shut down for nearly four years before reopening with new cars and tightened safety rules in 2015. It remains the only tram line still running in Rio, and riding it up over the aqueduct and into Santa Teresa's narrow, cobblestoned streets is as much a part of the neighborhood's identity as anything you'll see on foot.

On the Lapa side of the walk, the Selarón Steps are the work of one man: Jorge Selarón, a Chilean-born artist who settled in Rio and, in 1990, started replacing the crumbling steps outside his own house with broken tiles in green, yellow, and blue — Brazil's colors. He never really stopped. Over more than two decades he covered all 215 steps with over 2,000 tiles gathered from more than 60 countries, roughly 300 of them hand-painted by Selarón himself, often funded one tile at a time as money allowed. He said the project would only end on the day he died — and in January 2013, he was found dead on the staircase he'd spent 23 years building, at age 65.

Between the tram ride and the steps, the walk passes through Santa Teresa itself — a neighborhood of colonial-era mansions, steep cobblestone lanes, and artists' studios that has long had a reputation as Rio's bohemian quarter. Largo do Guimarães, the small square at its center, is the neighborhood's real social hub, lined with the restaurants and bars where much of Santa Teresa's everyday life actually plays out.