World Urban Forum V

During the World Urban Forum V, which take place in Rio de Janeiro last week, the Castelinho38 had the honor to host several of the professors, urbanists, journalists and arquitechts whom were invited to participate to this important international conference. The Forum was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing problems facing the world today: rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies.

Sao Paulo ONG Polis has used C38 as head quarter for their "Partners Meeting", it has been a great pleasure to have them all here during that week.

You ll be staying in our memories and our hearts:Jeremy, Tony, Rita, Geoffrey,Nina, Vaz, Manuella, Lizandra as well as Edgard and his amazing family, Mirjam, Rafael and the little Manu...

We really enjoyed your presence here! And thanks for working so hard for a better world!!! All the future generations will apreciate it.

"Sheraton? No, thanks"

Tired of the unpersonal and cold hotels of Rio, one day Nicole was walking around Santa Teresa when suddenly, just by chance, the Castelinho appear on her way. She couldn´t tell us what was exactly what she felt, but she knew very clearly that this was the place for her. Maybe it was the wonderful view of our garden or maybe the charming smile of Samba. She didn´t know and neither did us. But the thing is that she returned to the place where she was staying -a very wellknow "luxury 5 star hotel"-, she packed all her things and some hours later Nicole was enjoying a cold -and sweet- caipirinha in the C38´s bar.

She stay in the Castelinho almost a week. Wherever she was, we always found a laugh, a smile or a hugh. She enjoyed talking with all of us, drinking coffee in the kitchen, sharing a pizza in the terrace or just sitting in the garden and describing us what was Chicago like. She didn´t care of the "waters of march", the wind or the storms. Instead, she prefered following the "steps" of Oscar Niemeyer in Rio. She went to the "Casa das Canoas" in São Conrado, a sample of sophisticated colonial Brazilian architecture, located in the heart of the Tijuca Forest -the world’s largest green reserve within urban perimeter-. And of course, she visited what she called her "Oscar´s Cathedral": the MAC in Niteroi.




There she is, walking like a beliver directly to heaven.....

Nicole, the whole Castelinho38 staff really miss you. We all send you a very big hugh!!!

Giants invasion in Rio!!!

At the beginning of this month, coming from Holland the Giant Jan.

Staying with us for 8 days, a giant smile with giant ideas and a giant heart, took proof of our country on a realistic way, visiting by himself some parts of Rio. Interested on understanding a little bit of our culture and our reality, he got really great experiences by himself and principally shared a little with us.

After a few days travelling around Brasil, he finally came back to us, now with a very special and pretty Giant girlfriend named Petricia! Invasion of the giants completed!

It was a pleasure to have our hotel invaded by this sweet giants!

For them, we send through this blog a Giant hug, hoping that they have a brilliant live and come back again soon!

Castelinho38 Staff.

Aussie NRG!

After a long conversation through e-mails and lots of excitement, they finally left Australia and arrived in Rio.

Long lasting talks over our balcony and bar, tour around Rio, visiting a favela and watching live the Carnaval parade at Sambódromo, this friendly guests left us with a sense of "wanting more", mostly because of the energetic way they felt and saw our country.

One of the most beautiful things of working on a Hotel is this variety of human sample we see coming and leaving our lifes: we have the opportunity to watch our own reality through other people`s eyes.

For this ones, we thanks for the energy they passed to us, to our city and to our schools of samba at Sambódromo.

We hope to see you again soon!

C38 staff.

GUESTS OF THE MONTH!

They arrived in Rio from Argentina, after a long trip: plane from London till São Paulo, there to Santiago de Chile and Valparaíso (Chile) and from there on, by boat to Argentina, Paraty and finally Rio.
Despite of the heat (over 40ºC almost every day of this month) and suffering a little bit to adapt to this, they went to Sambódromo Parade, sharing with our people this good vibrations they have inside! For sure gave good lucky to us and to the schools of samba!


Angelina and Dusan, a beautiful couple, easy going, simpathic, open mind, funny and happy...fiting in with our Country and with our Hotel at this period: Summer, laughs, heat, sweat and Canaval.

We hope to host them again as soon as possible!
C38 staff.

Julia 10 anos

Jaehee & Jason

Hi Chris and Talise,

Thank you for the beautiful, cozy place and kind help from you guys.
We really loved your place.
To Chris...
I send you the photo we took together when we left.
Thank you for your advice for everything-restaurant, samba club, Lapa steps, etc...
Best regards,

Jaehee

Familia Lima!

Durante o mês de Julho recebemos essa linda familia vinda de São Paulo.
Os pais Cláudia e Gelson e seus filhos Pedro e Noel marcaram sua presença em nossos dias nublados de inverno Carioca, sem perder a simpatia e bom humor.
Mais que hóspedes eles foram nossos informantes fazendo a gentileza de nos enviar uma matéria da Revista SERAFINA ( Folha de São Paulo ) que continha o Castelinho38 em suas páginas.
Pelo carinho e gentileza foram consagrados como nossos Hóspedes do Mês !
Esperamos uma nova visita em breve!

Future guests

Kids and children. This has been the marketing campaign target, during the European Tour 09, which this (european) summer lasted just two weeks and touched a restricted area between Slovenija and North East of Italy.

Castelinho38 again wanted to make sure his future guests are doing fine and are still ready to pay us a visit once they ll be grown up, in fact we should be around 2020 if they are not coming accompanied by their parents before.


The future generations are the ones we need to care of and make sure they ll be able to have some quality time in our premises as they parents has been doing and will be doing soon again.


Looks like we have been too much futuristic in our marketing campaign, but once you are looking at the future can t make it without them.

So just a few pictures of a few representatives we have met during our two weeks tour, some on their own and some with fathers and mothers: Cecilia, Tea, Milo, Matija, Alice, Gulia...see you soon

Giancarlo Neri

We d like to pay a little tribute to one of the greatest Italian contemporary artist, Giancarlo Neri,with who we had the pleasure to spend a week here at Castelinho38.
Infact Giancarlo has been invited by the local authorities to develop a "lighting project" here in Rio, and was so busy during last week that we hardly have seen him and took a picture together.


On his business card Giancarlo use to have "Centrocampista"(Midfilder), meaning he had a professional past in the football, that was actually in New York where he also started to get involved with ART. Among other skills Giancarlo got to be known for his massive installations, sculptures and lighting projects.


In Rio de Janeiro he is exhibiting at the moment in the very new Progetti Art Gallery, it is a DUO with local artist Marcos Chaves, with who he will for sure, be preparing something special very soon in the future. Marcos and Giancarlo are very good friends for long time and two unique caracthers in the art world.

"The Writer" sculpture have been shown in Hampstead Heat, London and in Villa Ada, Rome and it is probably his most famous art work. But he is still thinking about doing something much bigger, so get prepared. Giancarlo is very much at home here in Brasil and speaks, acts, wears as a perfect "carioca", so we really hope he will be back soon.

Guests pictures

We have received these pictures from Berlin, and this kind message:
"It took me some weeks but here you go, some of the pictures we took in your hotel.
Thanks again for the nice stay there, back in Germany we always remember the good time we had in Rio!

Bye,

Katharina and Maurus "

Hendricks family

Our dutch friend Olaf came to visit us, and this time together with his lovely family and Robert Jan,a good friend of them. Olaf is responsible for showing the hidden gems of Latin America to the dutch public, being the founder and director of Olafreisen.
Olaf is an expert of South America, this time was travelling in Colombia and Peru before meeting his family in Sao Paulo. From there they first chilled out in the natural pool of Vilavolta, Paraty-Mirim and then enjoyed the stunning view from our terrace-bar and the dogs.
They are a great family, and the youngsters Bas and Pete are adorable children!
It has been a lovely, but short time we have shared together here @ c38, now enjoy the rest of your Brazilian trip, but come be back soon.

Guests of April 09

C38 guests of the month are : Richard and Cathy Webb, who spent their honeymoon in Brazil, and the last stop of their trip with us here at Castelinho38.
Richard and Chaty were so kind to share the very fresh photos of their wedding with us and the stories of the families, coming from Scotland and Ireland (but in a globlal world they met eachother in Madrid and lived in London together before getting married and come to Rio).
We shared with them the little secrets of Lapa and the hospitality of our place - the special atmosphere of the house-particularly romantic during their stay.
Take care of your fine selves, and congratulation once again from all C38.

Dinos

Last week we had an invasion of Dinosaurs in our premises! Our guests Jorge and Marlies Ritter from Porto Alegre, came to Rio in order to celebrate their grandson Francisco 1st britday.
They have invited Francisco s older brother Antonio to spend the week-end with them at the castel.

With great surprise -when they ve opened Antonio s suitecase, the room was invaded by all sort of paleolithic Dinosaurs species!! Antonio had invited his friends and there they were all ready to play in their new room. Francisco pay us a visit during the breakfast on sunday and enjoyed to play with our dogs, while grandmother was fascinated with our art exihibiton, being herself an artist too. Check out Marlies Ritter latest works at Bolsa de Arte in Porto Alegre.

Guests of the Month (March 09)

Margareth Williams and Felipe Barber have won all the other competitors and got the trophy of Guests of the Month of March. They are coming from UK and have traveled a big slice of the world before coming in RIO and at C38.
There are not enough words to describe this great and beautiful couple that spent few weeks in our company. They have experienced deeply all the delights and surprise of C38, from art opening to our simple but tasty lunch, through the fidelity bar and the wi-fi music connection. Thanks so much for all the great time we spent with you guys, and BOA SORTE with everything!

Fernandez Family

The Fernandez family left Valencia (Spain) almost 6 months ago and have been traveling and living in Asia (stop in Bali for a few months) and Australia before approaching South America via Chile and Argentina. They have a year off and for they stay in RIO they ve chosen C38.

We have spent a week together and shared pleasant time in playing with Carola(5 years) and Lucia (7 years) and talking with Luis and Marta. After a long time on the road they all felt very much at HOME here with us and have now moved to Bahia in order to rent a house there and spend some time in Itacare, where the girls should be attending school.

From the most classic visit at Sugar Loaf or the Modern Art Museum, what have impressed us all is that all the 4 members of the family have jumped from the hang-gliding ramp with the instructor in their first Fly over Rio de Janeiro.
We wish them a good time in Baiha and looking forward to see them again before they will leave Brazil on their way to the last destination of their big trip: Mexico.

Red star of Fulda

We are already feeling "saudades" of our dear guest & friend Klaus Stegmueller, with who we had the chance to spend 15 days together.
Klaus has gone back home in Germany after a successful visit to the local institution for the Health Care System, where he introduced them the best thing of the german policies for Health.
Klaus will be remembered for long time for our great chats, sharing a beer or two in our terrace and especially because his music is already playing at C38,as one of our favorite Jazz playlist.
Danke shoen and hopefully see you soon.

Guests of February

Carnival officially finished on wednesday 25th, more than two weeks ago, but as you can see it s hard to not talk about it. So especially for the month of February there are no winners for the guests of the month competition, as all of them have been involved in the streets carnival and disappear for many days....or did not wish to be shown in their carnevalesque disguises.


But if there were an award for the best street "bloco", this would go to CONGOROCOSONGO. The bloco is pretty recent in town and the name is a bit unusual but their music is excellent!! They left Largo do Curvelo (little square in Santa Teresa) around 9am on monday 23rd and by 11 all the streets of Santa Teresa were flooded by happy masquerade people.


If you look carefully the picture above, you can find C38 representative holding a red umbrella on the right end side of the crowd, now to see our guests of the month will be a bit more difficoult, especially because they wanted to maintain their secret identity ..Fernando and Carmen s cat "Pluminha" also disguise herself but during a little snap we caught her with the wings!