The quintessential Brazilian bossa nova jazz anthem is a song about a beautiful beach girl living in the fashionable enclave to the west of Rio de Janeiro’s famed tourist beach Copacabana. ”˜The Girl from Ipanema’ was first made famous in 1962 by a Brazilian musician and poet duo who wrote about a local girl who used to walk the streets of Ipanema. It was a sexy opus to the ephemeral beauty of youth and Brazilian beach culture.
Unlike the more famed Copacabana beach of Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema has always been known as a center of culture and fashion with world-class restaurants and high-end real estate crowding the waterfront district. Framed to the west by the iconic ”˜Two Brothers’ or Morro Dois Irmaos mountains, Ipanema is also known to surfers for its heavy shore break and to kitesurfers for its frontal-driven wind.