Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Glória do Outeiro

Riding up this steep granite promontory today feels effortless because of the little funicular car sliding along the rails. Yet climbing this very hill once decided whether Rio de Janeiro would survive at all.

In January 1567, this bluff was known as Morro do Leripe, and it was a fiercely defended redoubt. French traders and their Indigenous Tamoio allies had fortified an entrenched settlement called Uruçu-Mirim somewhere along these heights. Portuguese forces led by Estácio de Sá landed below and fought their way up the rocky slope to dislodge them. Colonial historians still debate the exact boundaries of that Indigenous palisade, but we know the fighting here was brutal. Estácio de Sá took a poisoned arrow to the face during the assault, dying from his wound a month later.

The Portuguese broke the French alliance, secured the coastline, and established permanent control over Guanabara Bay. For centuries afterward, climbing up to visit the church meant tackling a steep, punishing stone footpath on foot.

That finally changed on January 20, 1944: exactly three hundred and seventy-seven years to the day after the Battle of Uruçu-Mirim. The city opened this sixty-five-meter funicular, the Plano Inclinado, linking the neighborhood streets below at Rua do Russel directly to the hilltop churchyard. It still operates free of charge today, turning what was once a bloody military climb into a gentle two-minute ride.