Salvador travel guide

Top 10 sights in Salvador

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Paul R. Burley · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cathedral of Salvador

   The cathedral of Salvador, built by the Jesuits between 1657 and 1746 in Lisbon stone shipped as ballast, and one of the finest baroque interiors in Brazil. Its gilded chapels and Portuguese tile work survived when the Jesuits were expelled in 1759.

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2. 

   2© EvertonCostaFoto · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Elevador Lacerda

   A public lift of seventy-two metres joining the lower city to the upper, built between 1869 and 1873 and named after the merchant Antônio de Lacerda who paid for it. Originally hydraulic, electric since 1906, it carries about twenty-eight thousand people a day for a few cents.

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3. 

   3© Andrevruas · CC BY 3.0

   Church of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim

   An eighteenth-century church on the only hill of the Itapagipe peninsula, and the most venerated in Salvador. Its Room of Miracles is hung with wax limbs and photographs left by the healed, and the coloured ribbons tied to its railings are the city's emblem; the Bonfim festival falls in January.

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4. 

   4© Wellington Da Costa Gomez · CC BY-SA 4.0

   São Francisco Church and Convent

   A Franciscan church and convent whose interior is covered almost entirely in gilded woodcarving — reputedly hundreds of kilograms of gold leaf — and considered the summit of Brazilian baroque. Portuguese azulejos of the 1740s line the cloister walls.

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5. 

   5© Paul R. Burley · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Rio Branco Palace

   A palace on the upper city dating in origin to 1549, when Salvador was founded as the first capital of Brazil, and the residence of the colonial governors. It served as the Bahia state government seat and now holds a cultural centre and library.

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6. 

   6© Portal da Copa/ME (victoria.camara) · CC BY 3.0 br

   São Marcelo Fort

   A circular fort built on a shoal in the bay from 1650, the only such sea fort in Brazil, reached by boat from the Mercado Modelo. It defended the harbour entrance and later served as a prison; the water around it is shallow enough to stand in at low tide.

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7. 

   7© by Luan · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Porto da Barra Beach

   A beach in the Barra district inside the bay rather than on the ocean, so the water is calm and the sand shelves gently. It faces west, which makes it one of very few city beaches in Brazil where the sun sets over the sea.

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8. 

   8© Agecom Bahia from Bahia/Brasil · CC BY 2.0

   Bahia Museum of Art

   One of the oldest museums in Bahia, in a nineteenth-century mansion in Vitória, holding colonial and nineteenth-century Bahian painting, furniture, porcelain and silver. The Chinese porcelain came through the Portuguese trade with Macau.

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9. 

   9© Sailko · CC BY 3.0

   Basilica of the Immaculate Conception

   A church in the lower city, built in Portugal of Lisbon stone in the 1730s, numbered, shipped across and assembled here. Its ceiling was painted by José Joaquim da Rocha, the first Brazilian-born master of illusionistic perspective.

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10. 

    10© joquerollo [2] · CC BY 2.0

    Fort of Monserrate

    A fort at the tip of the Itapagipe peninsula, begun in the sixteenth century and rebuilt in 1743, guarding the inner bay. Its low round tower sits almost at the waterline and it is one of seventeen forts built around Salvador.

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1. 

   1© Paul R. Burley · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Church of the Third Order of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black People

   An eighteenth-century church in Pelourinho built over nearly a century by a lay brotherhood of enslaved and freed Black Africans, who could work on it only at night and on Sundays. It holds Candomblé-influenced Masses and is the historic centre of Black Catholicism in Brazil.

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2. 

   2© Deusa do Ébano · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Mercado Modelo

   A craft market beside the harbour in the former customs house of 1861, with about 260 stalls of instruments, carvings and cachaça. Its cellars are held locally to have been used to hold newly landed enslaved people, and are shown as such.

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3. 

   3© Ajmcbarreto · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Museum of Modern Art of Bahia

   The Bahia museum of modern art, in the seventeenth-century Solar do Unhão — a sugar estate house with its own chapel and slave quarters on the bay. The buildings are as much the subject as the art; a sculpture park runs down to the water.

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4. 

   4© Paul R. Burley · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Dom Pedro II Home

   An eighteenth-century mansion in Salvador, later the Santa Isabel almshouse and now a residential home, known as the Dom Pedro II Home. It is named after the emperor, who is recorded as having stayed in it during a visit to Bahia.

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5. 

   5© Ednei Fialho Lopes · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Church of the Third Order of Saint Francis

   An eighteenth-century church in Pelourinho of the Franciscan Third Order, whose entire sandstone facade is carved in high relief in the Spanish Churrigueresque manner — the only such front in Brazil. It was plastered over for two centuries and rediscovered in 1936.

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   Forte de Santa Maria

   A fort on the Barra shore built in the seventeenth century, which with the neighbouring Santo Antônio fort covered the mouth of the bay. It stands directly on the beach and is used for exhibitions.

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7. 

   7© lilap · CC BY 2.0

   Praça Terreiro de Jesus

   A square in the oldest part of the historic centre, abutting the Praça da Sé, with the cathedral, São Pedro dos Clérigos, the Third Order of São Domingos and two more churches all facing it. The medical school of 1808, Brazil's first, is on one side.

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8. 

   8© Paul R. Burley · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Archbishop's Palace of Salvador

   The archbishop's residence on the Terreiro de Jesus, built in the colonial period for the primate of Brazil — Salvador's archbishop still holds that title. It faces the cathedral across the square.

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9. 

   9© Eduardo P · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Itapuã

   A coastal neighbourhood that Brazilian song and fiction made famous: Vinicius de Moraes lived here and wrote 'Uma tarde em Itapoa' with Toquinho, Dorival Caymmi sang of it, and Jorge Amado set scenes of Dona Flor on its sand. A lighthouse and a lagoon mark the old fishing village.

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10. 

    10© Sailko · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Afro-Brazilian Museum

    A museum inaugurated on 7 January 1982 in the old medical faculty on the Terreiro de Jesus, on the African contribution to Brazil. Its centrepiece is twenty-seven carved cedar panels of the Candomblé orixás by Carybé, made for this room.

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