Copacabana Palace

The Copacabana Palace Hotel is the most famous and luxurious hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and one of the most famous of the world.It's considered South America's premier hotel such as the best hotel of the Southern Hemisphere, having received the rich and famous for the past 80 years. It faces the world renowned Copacabana Beach. It consists of an 8-storey main building and a 14-storey annex. The hotel was designed by french arquitect Joseph Gire. It has 216 rooms (148 in the main building and 78 in the annex), a semi-olympic swimming pool, an exclusive swimming pool for VIP guests located at the penthouse, a tennis court, fitness center, a 3-storey spa, two bars, a nightclub and two restaurants. It was inaugurated on August 14, 1923. It was featured in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio. After Brasília became the Brazilian capital in 1960, the hotel underwent a period of slow decline and was surpassed by the more modern hotels which were built in the 1970s. There were plans to demolish the hotel in 1985, but they were scrapped afterwards. The hotel was refurbished sometime after 1989 when Orient Express group bought it.