For glorious Brazilian beaches, Copacabana is ground zero. But the elegant Copacabana Palace is the hotel that created this place, making this strip of sand famous and helping to conjure the idea of the beach as central to Brazilian identity. When the Copacabana Palace opened over a hundred years ago, it occupied an unheralded neighborhood, amid modest houses and fishermen’s shacks. Until then, Rio de Janeiro had been centered on the old downtown areas of Centro and Castelo, and the 19th-century mansions of leafy Santa Teresa, but a new age of leisure arrived in the post-war years. Sunbathing was suddenly a thing, and Coco Chanel made having a tan fashionable. Designed by French architect Joseph Gire, the Copacabana Palace adopted the elegant Art Deco lines of the grand hotels of the French Riviera. More than a century on, the Copacabana Palace is still a Rio icon, bestriding the Avenida Atlântica on that incomparable bay. The style is classic opulence, with vast chandeliers, acres of marble, and Brazilian hardwoods; a sanctuary among the city’s endless partying. But this is Brazil. The Palace may be grand, but it is also fun. The dining options are fabulous, there is a rooftop tennis court, and, across the avenue on that famous beach, hotel staff attend to guests with umbrellas, loungers, cold towels, and sun lotion. —Stanley Stewart
