A convent names the hill
The hill was once called Desterro, after a chapel built there in 1620. In 1750, with the support of Governor Gomes Freire de Andrade, Jacinta Rodrigues Aires — Mother Jacinta de São José — laid the cornerstone of the Convent of Santa Teresa, of the Discalced Carmelite nuns.
The convent gave its name to the hill and the neighborhood, and it is still home to cloistered nuns today.
The Arches: from aqueduct to viaduct
Below the convent runs the Carioca Aqueduct, known as the Lapa Arches. Inaugurated in 1750, it carried water from the Carioca River — the same river that runs down the Laranjeiras valley — to the Carioca Fountain. It has 42 arches on two levels, 270 meters long and 17.6 meters high.
When it stopped carrying water in the late 19th century, the aqueduct found a new use: from 1896 it became a viaduct for the trams climbing to Santa Teresa.
The tram
Rails reached the hill in the 1870s with a funicular incline. On September 1, 1896, the electric tram began running across the Arches, on an unusual 1.10-meter gauge dictated by the width of the aqueduct.
After an accident in 2011, service was suspended and the system rebuilt. The trams returned in 2015 with new cars. It is the last historic tram line still running in Rio.
A haven for artists
Around 1850, fleeing the yellow fever that hit the lower city, many families moved up the hill and built mansions. In the early 20th century, Laurinda Santos Lobo’s mansion hosted artists and intellectuals such as Villa-Lobos and Tarsila do Amaral; in 1997 its ruins became the Parque das Ruínas, now called Parque Glória Maria.
Next door is the Chácara do Céu Museum, the home of collector Raymundo Ottoni de Castro Maya, open to the public since 1972, with works by Matisse, Portinari, Di Cavalcanti and Debret.
The Selarón Steps
In 1990, Chilean artist Jorge Selarón began covering in tiles the steps that link Lapa to Santa Teresa, beside the convent. By his death in 2013, he had turned the 215 steps into a mosaic of about 5,000 pieces from some 120 countries.
Music & bohemian life
Bohemia on the hill and below it
At the foot of Santa Teresa lies Lapa, the heart of Rio’s bohemian life since the early 20th century: a land of samba players, cabarets and malandros (streetwise rogues) — the same Lapa that Chico Buarque evoked in his musical Ópera do Malandro (1978). Since 1982, the Circo Voador, beside the Arches, has hosted concerts that defined Brazilian rock in the 1980s.
Up on the hill, Carnival has the neighborhood’s personality: the Bloco das Carmelitas, founded in 1990, was inspired by the story of a nun who supposedly jumped the convent wall to join the party. Revelers dress as nuns to hide the runaway, who “escapes” on Carnival Friday and “returns” on Tuesday. And the bars around Largo dos Guimarães, where the tram passes, keep the feel of an artists’ village.