Brazil

An Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ atop the 700-metre Corcovado peak in Rio de Janeiro, built 1922-1931, whose 30-metre stone figure with outstretched arms has become the definitive image of Brazil.

The world's largest waterfall system, where the Iguazu River plunges through a basalt gorge on the Brazil-Argentina border; most of the 275 individual falls are on the Argentine side but the Brazilian park offers the full panoramic view.

A 155,000-hectare national park in northeastern Brazil where rolling sand dunes up to 40 metres high trap rainwater in seasonal freshwater lagoons between January and September, creating one of the most visually improbable landscapes in South America.

A 396-metre granite peak at the mouth of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, world-famous for its cable car and the 360-degree panoramic view it provides of the city, the bay and the Atlantic beyond.

The historic centre of Salvador da Bahia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where Portuguese colonial architecture from the 17th to 19th centuries lines steep cobbled streets above the Baia de Todos os Santos; named for the whipping post at its heart that was the site of public punishment during the slave trade.

An Art Nouveau opera house in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Manaus, built during the rubber boom of the 1890s and now the home of the annual Festival Amazonas de Opera and the Amazonas Philharmonic Orchestra.