Where to stay in Centro & Lapa

The old city and the arches: churches and colonial squares among the towers, the Confeitaria Colombo, the museums at Praça Mauá, the Selarón steps, and under the aqueduct the bars and samba houses that are Rio's late nightlife. It holds more of what a visitor came to see than any other area here, at the lowest rates on this list. It also empties and then fills again: Centro is an office district, so after seven on a weekday and on Sundays the streets crowded at lunchtime are not, while Lapa is the opposite and specific — busy and loud on Friday and Saturday nights and ordinary the rest of the week. Which street the hotel is on, and which night you are asking about, matters more here than anywhere else in this city.

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