3 Best Sights in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

What was once the headquarters of Brazil's oldest bank is now an enormous cultural space in downtown Rio. With areas designated for cinema screenings, expositions, music, educational programs, and theater, this is one of the city's best rainy-day options. The 19th-century building, with its ornate domed roof, is impressive in itself, and the visiting exhibitions—which might showcase anything from impressionist masterpieces to the works of São Paulo street artists—rarely disappoint. There are two coffee shops, a restaurant and an arts shop in the building. There is also a children's library on the top floor, and many free activities for all ages. 

Pre-booked tickets have priority on exhibition entrance. You can book for free at  ingressos.ccbb.com.br/cidades

This slick, ultramodern exhibition space once housed Rio's Telecommunications Museum. The museum itself delivers a unique multimedia adventure—lots of monitors, blinking lights, and media artifacts. After you've been oriented in the use of the MP3 headsets, a light- and mirror-filled air-lock-like room awaits. The sights in this tiny exhibit space will likely mesmerize you, and if you don't speak Portuguese, the English guide will explain what you can't figure out from the visual cues. The building has two different spaces: one focused on the transformation of communications over the years and how this affects our lives, and the other focused on the relationship between technology and arts.

The first audiovisual museum in Brazil, the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) was founded to acquire, preserve, and exhibit important collections tied to Rio's cultural history. The museum houses collections of images and sound in a range of mediums, including engravings, drawings, caricatures, musical instruments, photographs, books, discs, recordings, and even antique gramophones, microphones, and musical instruments. The collections highlight the works of many of Rio's lesser-known names of the past, such as the Batista sisters of Brazil's Golden Age of Radio, and Elizeth Cardoso, considered to be one of the greatest female singers of Brazilian popular music.