Visit of the historical center of Salvador do Bahia

As every first days in new cities, we booked a walking tour. We wake up with the rain but by the time we get to the meeting point and the tour starts, it has devolved to a drizzle and then stopped.

Salvador was once the most important cities of the Portuguese colony, busier than Rio de Janeiro. It shows in the number of historical buildings left in the city center, even though a lot have been destroyed. There are fortifications and forts in the bay too. What is a very different from the other of city in Brazil is that the afro-Brazilian population is much bigger here and in the streets it’s a very good mix. The city center has beautiful and colorful facades, large squares and because we are in the high part of the city, nice views of the sea. The music we hear from the street performers is samba-reggae, and I like this beat. I also like that street performers are present in almost all touristic square, and it makes the city a genuine full sensory experience.

Salvador has the Guinness book record for their carnival – and when you visit the Casa do Carnaval, you get a glimpse into the huge party ! ( I would definitely recommend this museum ).

This walking tour was great but left me unsatisfied because you get a lot of information and yet, on many topics I wished it went deeper – I actually am a lot more curious about the afro-Brazilian community and the past of Salvador. There are many points of interest around the city, I didn’t know about when I researched.

The tour guide leaves us right at lunch with a lot of recommendations of visits in the upper and lower city.

One of those advises was a culinary school with a training restaurant. At lunch, they do a buffet with only the specialties from Bahia state. We head there and got to taste an amazing selection of delicious food. If you don’t have much time to explore Salvador, then this is the best place to get a wide sample of almost all the famous dishes.

We are stuffed, and food coma is kicking in. We do not stop for a nap however because our apartment is a good 20min drive away – and we decide to continue with San Francisco church. This one was a contrast. The courtyards and inner corridors were quite simple except for blue mosaic that shows scenes with moral lessons. Some of them were a little confusing to understand and a lot had to do with money and greed.

Then we enter the main church, and it’s an explosion of gold in that Brazilian Baroque style we have seen in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Our morning guide had said 800kg of gold is spread through the gildings and other objects inside. It’s a sight to see and funny after all the moral lessons leading to the entrance…

We then walk back to the Afro-Brazilian Museum, I was hoping to get more insight into the community and the slave trade, and today’s socio-economic impact. The first issue was that everything is only in Portuguese. We could guess some of the panels but overall, we didn’t get from this museum much now knowledge. The last room had exceptional carved murals representing the 27 main divinities or spiritual figures from the Candomblé ( and some others ).

Since we didn’t understand much, it was a quick visit and we headed towards our last museum stop, the Casa Do Carnaval. This was a very nice one, lots of music, colors and explanations about the traditions surrounding it. On the 2nd floor there are experience cinemas where you get props and tools to danse to a playlist of traditional Carnaval songs and suggested choreography. This was a fairly short visit too but a very entertaining one. Content was in English & Portuguese.

Just next to the museum is the funicular to go into the lower city – so down we go. We want to see the souvenir market Marketo Modelo and also recon the ferry terminal for tomorrow. It’s right behind it.

As any souvenir market, we really don’t find much of anything – we have already bought our small magnet in the upper city. The prices are the same and the selection pretty much identical. We walk through having a look before exiting on the other side to the passenger ferry terminal.

There we double check the schedule, the price, that we can pay by card and the general layout. Satisfied with our short recon, we just hop back into a uber to get back to the apartment. It’s been a long and hot day on our feet. The rest of the late afternoon and evening is spent resting.