at a glance

one thing travelers to brazil will discover is that many things have more than one name - in rio, it can definitely be said that everything has a formal long name, as well as a common or short name. construction on what is now known as the forte duque de caxias (fort duke of caxias) began in the late seventeen hundreds, as with many of the portuguese forts, it was built to work within a network of other forts for coastal defense - an impending invasion by the spanish prompted the new fort to be built on top of morro do leme (leme's hill), it was, at this point, called forte do vigia (fort of the watch) since its purpose was to observe the sea traffic on the baía da guanabara (guanabara bay).