Laranjeiras

Laranjeiras is a neighbourhood in the south of Rio de Janeiro, in the valley the Carioca river cut on its way down from Corcovado. The name is the orange groves that once grew there, and the square at its foot, Largo do Machado, was once Campo das Pitangueiras), the field of pitanga trees. Country houses came in the seventeenth century, the state government later, and in 1914 Fluminense’s ground hosted Brazil’s first international, a 2–0 over Exeter City. The valley floor sits a few metres above the sea; the hill behind it is already two hundred metres up before the plate runs out.