Photo: Cyro A. Silva from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the old centre of Rio de Janeiro, starting at Praça Mauá beside the cruise terminal on Píer Mauá. It takes in Calatrava's Museum of Tomorrow, the Valongo Wharf, inscribed by UNESCO in 2017 as the most important physical evidence of the arrival of enslaved Africans in the Americas, the Pedra do Sal of Pequena África, and the gilded interior of the São Bento monastery church. Then Candelária, Praça Quinze de Novembro and the Paço Imperial, where Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law abolishing slavery in 1888, the Arco do Teles, the Carmo church, Royal Chapel of the Portuguese court from 1808, the Confeitaria Colombo of 1894 and the Royal Portuguese Reading Room. Past the Theatro Municipal, the National Library and the conical Metropolitan Cathedral, the route climbs to Santa Teresa by tram when it is running, to Largo do Guimarães and the Parque das Ruínas, and ends down the Selarón steps at the Arcos da Lapa, the eighteenth-century aqueduct the tram crosses. The full route is several kilometres; with little time ashore, keep to the Centro stops near the port.
20 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 385 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 65 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Praça Mauá, Museu do Amanhã, Cais do Valongo, Pedra do Sal, Mosteiro de São Bento, Candelária Church.
Praça Quinze de Novembro, Paço Imperial, Arco do Teles, Igreja do Carmo da Antiga Sé, Confeitaria Colombo, Real Gabinete Português de Leitura.
Theatro Municipal, Biblioteca Nacional, Catedral Metropolitana, Santa Teresa Tram Station, Largo do Guimarães, Parque das Ruínas, Escadaria Selarón, Arcos da Lapa.
The stone wharf of 1811 where enslaved Africans were landed, buried in 1911 and found again in 2011; on the World Heritage List since 2017.
The Benedictine monastery founded in 1590, its plain Mannerist front hiding a church covered in gilded carving.
The governors', viceroys' and royal palace, where Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law abolishing slavery on 13 May 1888.
The confectioner's of 1894, with mirrors from Antwerp framed in rosewood and a stained-glass skylight over the tea room.
The Neo-Manueline reading room opened in 1887, its carved wooden bookcases rising to an iron-and-glass skylight.
The steps Jorge Selarón covered in tiles from more than 60 countries, from 1990 until his death in 2013.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 20 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 20 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Rio de Janeiro — Centro, Lapa and Santa Teresa, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
20 narration points, including Praça Mauá, Museu do Amanhã, Cais do Valongo, Pedra do Sal and Mosteiro de São Bento. That is about 36 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~4 hours with the tram ride total, but you walk at your own pace. 20 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.