Salvador was Brazil's capital from 1549 to 1763 and the busiest slave port in the Atlantic world. Three days trace that ledger: Jesuit baroque above, the Bay's forts and wharves below, and the Afro-Bahian quilombo and independence stories that answered them.
The 1657–72 Jesuit college church, built of Lisbon limestone shipped as ballast. Padre António Vieira preached here; the sacristy holds Bahia's finest jacaranda-and-tortoiseshell inlay. Open Mon–Sat 08:30–17:00, Sun after mass.
Convent begun 1580, briefly the headquarters of the Dutch occupiers in 1624–25 and later of the Portuguese-Bahian forces in 1823. Its Christ statue by the enslaved-born sculptor O Cabra uses 2,000 rubies as blood drops.
Housed in the 1808 medical faculty, Brazil's first. Carybé's 27 carved cedar panels of the orixás fill one hall; downstairs the Museu Arqueológico e Etnológico holds Tupinambá and Sambaqui material predating 1500.
Begun 1534, the oldest fort in Brazil; its 1698 lighthouse was the first in the South Atlantic. The naval museum displays salvage from the Sacramento, a galleon wrecked in the bay in 1668, including bronze cannon and porcelain.
The circular sea fort of 1650 sitting alone in the Baía de Todos os Santos, nicknamed the umbigo (navel). It held political prisoners after the 1837 Sabinada revolt and was shelled during the 1823 independence blockade.
The 1873 Conde dos Arcos lift, electrified in 1930, joins the two cities in 22 seconds for R$0.15. Behind it stands the Palácio Rio Branco, the governors' seat since 1549, rebuilt after the 1912 naval bombardment of Salvador.
A 17th-century sugar estate and wharf where enslaved arrivals were unloaded and quarantined; the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Conceição stands beside the old mill. Lina Bo Bardi converted it in 1963, keeping the slave-quarters shell.
The 1846 bronze caboclo on his serpent marks 2 July 1823, when Bahian forces expelled the Portuguese — Brazil's real independence date locally, not 7 September. The star-shaped 1650 fort anchors the square's south side.
Consecrated 1754, the church whose Christ was syncretised with Oxalá. The Sala dos Milagres hangs wax limbs and photographs left as ex-votos; the January Lavagem do Bonfim washing ritual dates to 1773. Open Tue–Sun 06:30–18:00.
Founded around 1830 by freed Yoruba women, the oldest documented Candomblé terreiro in Brazil and the first listed as national heritage, in 1984. Its sacred grove and barracão survived repeated police raids up to the 1970s.
The 1654 Santa Casa complex that ran Bahia's hospital, foundling wheel and funerals. Displays include the roda dos expostos where abandoned infants were left, and 18th-century Portuguese azulejo panels along the upper cloister.
The cobbled ramp porters used to haul sugar and tobacco between the wharves and the upper city, lined with 18th-century warehouses. The Comércio streets below held the trading houses that financed Bahia's slave voyages to Benin.