A 5-day Rio de Janeiro itinerary, day by day

Start on the bay side. Urca is a low, quiet, easily walked neighbourhood with a sea wall facing the water and the Sugarloaf cable car at its edge. Go up early, when the queue is shorter and the air is still clean: the view opens onto the mouth of Guanabara Bay, Niterói, Copacabana and the Tijuca massif behind.

After coming down, eat in Botafogo and give the afternoon to the neighbourhood. Botafogo beach is scenery rather than swimming, and the framing of Sugarloaf from there is among the best in the city. Finish back on Urca's sea wall at golden hour — a deliberately slow start that teaches you the geography before you start chasing it.

The Atlantic shoreline deserves a full day and almost no transport. Begin in Copacabana in the morning, when the promenade is busy and the sun is bearable. The beach changes character at every lifeguard post: family stretches, sport stretches, stretches of constant motion. Walking from Leme to Posto 6 is roughly four kilometres along the city's edge.

From Posto 6 you reach the Arpoador, the rock between the two beaches. Spend the afternoon in Ipanema, eat in the streets set back from the sand, and return to the Arpoador before sunset — the applause as the sun drops behind the Dois Irmãos peaks is a local habit, not a performance for visitors. If you still have energy, the Lagoa is minutes away.

The centre is the Rio the beaches never mention: four centuries of architecture, colonial churches, palaces, the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura and cultural centres in repurposed bank buildings. Start early, because much of it closes by late afternoon and the streets empty after office hours. The VLT tram links the main areas without long walks in the sun.

The port district, redeveloped for the 2016 Games, holds the Museum of Tomorrow, the Museu de Arte do Rio, the Olympic Boulevard and the Cais do Valongo — a UNESCO-listed site marking the arrival of enslaved Africans in the Americas. Finish on the African Heritage Circuit and, if there is a confirmed line-up, carry on to Lapa after dark.

Save the clearest forecast day for Corcovado: without visibility the climb loses its point. Access is by official transport only — the cog train, accredited vans, or authorised services inside Tijuca National Park — with a timed ticket bought in advance. Turning up without a booking in high season usually ends in disappointment.

Afterwards, make use of being inside the park already. Tijuca Forest has roads, waterfalls, the Vista Chinesa pavilion, the Mesa do Imperador and short, easy trails. It is the largest replanted urban forest in the world, the result of a nineteenth-century reforestation programme, and it changes the temperature and the soundscape completely compared with the coast.

Keeping the last day unplanned is the most useful decision in the whole itinerary. If it rained earlier, this day replaces what you lost. If the weather held, it opens space for what the classic circuit skips: the long beach at Barra da Tijuca, a hike up Pedra Bonita or Morro Dois Irmãos, the Botanical Garden, the Maracanã or the Museu Nacional in São Cristóvão.

If the trip has been intense, use the day to repeat what worked. A second late afternoon at the Arpoador beats a sixth tired attraction. The classic five-day mistake is packing the final day and arriving at the airport exhausted and late — leave slack for the trip out to Galeão or Santos Dumont.