Classical Snapshots

There was a time when I turned my nose up at conventional tourism. On visiting a city for the first time, I tried my utmost to avoid the trinket traps, gift emporia and prescribed itineraries. None of that overcommercialised commodified history  for me. Perish the thought. Instead, I scowled at  the bombastic architecture of ruling class vanity and trained myself to think about oppressed serfs inside gothic cathedrals. Anything on a postcard merited no more than a passing glance. It was far more worthy and interesting to walk around neglected housing schemes on the periphery, photograph garden sheds and bus stops, and nod in faux solidarity with poor folk. Alternatively, after a few shots,  I might indulge in a haphazard backstreets Situationist dérive, and  if I could find where the bin men drank, well then, I could slap myself on the back in the knowledge that I had truly found the pulse of a city. These days, and fortunately for everyone around me, I am rather more relaxed and accept that sometimes you have to go with the flow and accept the inevitable. Which is how I found myself in this cocktail bar on top of the Pão de Açúcar with this spectacular view of the Zona Sul, a global mainstay of a million holiday photo albums. To the left, Copacabana, immediately below the army base on Praia Vermelho, and to the right Botafogo.