The day after the football match was glorious sunshine so the four of us spent the day on Ipanema beach - along with thousands of others.

The fashion in Brazil on the beach is to wear as little as possible - male or female, overweight or toned, it doesn't matter. So what if youre pushing fifty and you've got massive cellulite infested legs? You want them tanned so get them out there. You can people watch on Brazilian beaches and see all spectrums of people, wearing the skimpiest of outfits.

But it was good to chill out and get some sun. The waves along Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon beaches are pretty tough. There is a strong current and undertow, so you don't want to go too deep, but you can have great fun wave diving and body surfing - don't dive through or duck under a wave and it will toss and turn you and spit you out.

On the Tuesday we organised a tour to see Rio's major sights in one afternoon: Christ the Redeemer, Santa Teresa, the Lapa Steps and Sugar Loaf mountain. Our guide was Orlando, a laid back guy our age with good taste in music. We jumped into our VW van and headed off to Christo Redentor with to the brilliant riffs of Hendrix.

Christ the Redeemer is built on top of Mount Corcovado, the highest peak in Rio. This, along with the football match, were the two things I wanted to get done in Brazil and tick off the bucket list. I'm not sure which is more impressive - the 360 degree view of the city from the top or the statue itself. At the top the weather was great - clear skies for our pictures and to take in the city. We weren't alone at the top, so there was some polite elbowing for the good photos but Orlando said it was quiet compared to what it would be like tomorrow. It was Children's Day and a national holiday but it was also the 80th year of the statue, so it would be jammed with people - we had picked a good day to visit.

Interestingly, Orlando gave his two cents on the statues influence. Although Brazil is often said to be the biggest Catholic country in the world, this isn't really true as most Brazilians actually have their own forms of religion that are a mix between Christianity and whatever beliefs were in the region when the Portuguese forced Catholism on them. Having said all that, there is a chapel inside the base of the Christo statue.

Travelling down Corcovado Orlando gave us his history lesson on Brazilian music and dance. Brazil is famous for the samba and for it's unique martial art, capoeira. Capoeira was invented out of necessity by the slaves and the indigenous peoples of Brazil as they were banned from practising any form of formal fighting so they invented one that looked like it was a dance.

Samba is the music we listened to as we cruised through Santa Teresa. It's not the poshest area now, but it's still one of the better ones, popular with artists. Its quaint and charming, with cobbled, curved streets - a far cry from the straight tarmaced ones covering most of Rio.

Those curved streets eventually led us into Lapa, a neighbouring area that we were already acquainted with. We were going to see the Lapa Steps, or Escada de Selaron, which I had heard of but knew nothing about and had dismissed in my mind as something akin to the Spanish Steps in Rome - something that is massively underwhelming to visit. But the steps in Lapa are something completely different. As I turned the corner to the start of the steps I was treated to a great surprise as the Lapa Steps are a wall of colour. Or should that be a stairway of colour.

To use Orlando's word, a "crazy" Chilean artist decided in the 80s to tile the steps that connect Santa Teresa and Lapa in order to draw attention to his art. Since 1983, when the 215 steps were covered in blue, green and yellow tiles (the colors of the Brazilian flag), the artist has constantly changed them. Selaron calls the stairway his "great madness" and claims he will never stop working on it until the day he dies. I don't know if he considers it now a success or not now that the art he created to highlight his art is more famous than the art it is supposed to highlight. Even though Selaron was there himself I didn't have the chance or the language skills to ask. We got our photo taken with the artist and he used his signature "crazy" pose - open palmed hand and tongue sticking out.

The current version of the steps has thousands of tiles, mostly in the theme of red and white. Selaron has completely destroyed and retiled the steps three times and people send him tiles from all over the world to be included in his next version. Naturally, there are several from Ireland, including a map, a harp and a pint of stout. It is the largest piece of sculpture built by one man, so you could spend hours there, finding one tile that's nicer than the last.

Our final stop was due to be a cable car ride up Sugar Loaf mountain, but Orlando gave us some bad news - the clouds were perched at the top of the mountain and would ruin any view. There wasn't even any point in waiting it out as there were more clouds were rolling in. But we had already had our spectacular city view from Corcovado so we didn't complain.