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| Lower City Salvador da Bahia Vacations and Luxury Travel Packages |
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During the 18th century, the lower city was expanded onto landfill and is now comprised of a port, an industrial zone, and a commercial area. There are, nonetheless, places worth seeing, such as Nossa Senhora da Conceqao da Praia (Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception on the Beach), which is situated near the Elevador Lacerda. When the church was built in the mid-18th century it stood closer to the shoreline than it now does, as the landfill had not yet distanced it from the water. Built according to a plan from Portugal, the church is made entirely out of Portuguese pedra de lioz, a marble-like stone that was used as ballast in the cargo holds of large sailing ships. Its monumental ceiling fresco dating from 1772 is the most outstanding work of its kind ever produced by the Bahia school. During the celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Virgin, which begins a week early here (on November 30 rather than December 8), Bahian culinary specialties are sold from roadside stands, capoeira martial arts dancers display their skills, and Praqa Cairu is full of sunbathers.
Mercado Modelo, which opened in 1971, is a tourist's shopping paradise housed in a sprawling two-story yellow building that was originally the customs office. Hammocks, musical instruments, embroidered blouses, T-shirts, and a potpourri of other merchandise are sold but visitors who don't bargain will pay too much! The terraces on the two restaurants in the marketplace afford memorable views of the harbor. Boats to Itaparica and other islands leave from the Terminal Maritimo. Smaller boats next to the market building provide transportation to Sao Marcelo, a 17th-century Portuguese fort built to protect the harbor, and later used as a house of detention for political prisoners.
The lower city extends northward to Peninsula Itapagipe, where two pilgrimage churches of vital importance in the Bahian ecclesiastical calendar are located: Nosso Senhor do Bonfim and Boa Viagem. The fastest and safest way to reach them is by taxi. The 18th-century Igreja do BonBm is of little art-historical interest. It is, however, among the churches in Brazil most frequented by pilgrims, and owing to its curious Museu de Ex-Votos, which features a varied collection of votive gifts, constitutes one of the highlights of a visit to Salvador. There is no avoiding the children who tie j"ztinhas (colored strips of cloth) with three knots in them around visitors' wrists, in exchange (the children hope) for some money. The knots symbolize three wishes that are supposed to be granted by the time the ribbons fall off.
The high point of the many religious feast days in Salvador da Bahias occurs in January on Lavagem do Bonfim (Church-cleaning Day), on which the women of the congregation wash down the broad staircase in front of the church after the procession from Igreja Conceiqao da Praia. Stefan Zweig, who witnessed this ritual, described it as follows: "The Church of Bonfim was originally a Negro church. Apparently, a parish priest told his flock that the proper thing to do on the day before the festival was to clean the church from top to bottom and wash down the floor with scrub brushes. The black Christians followed his instructions with pleasure, but in their naive, childlike way transformed the cleaning of the church into a festival. They tried to outdo each other in scrubbing and sweeping, as if it were their own sins they were trying to wash away. Thousands of them came from near and far, and their numbers increased from year to year. And from this custom a folk festival evolved."
The New Year's procession in honor of the patron saint of sailors wends its way to the aptly named Igreja da Boa Viagem (Church of the Safe Journey). Visitors can savor the pristine view of Salvador from Igreja Nossa Senhora do Monte Serrat, a former Benedictine hermitage perched on the western tip of the Itapagipe Peninsula. The Fort of Monte Serrat dates to the 16th century, and like the church, is not open to the public, as both are registered national monuments.
Another "sight" - and an important feature of the Itapagpipe Peninsula - are the alagados inhabited by Salvador's poorest citizens. Algados are rudimentary wooden shacks built on stilts above the surface of the often brackish water. These dwellings, as well as the people living in them, are regularly photographed by tourists. This can be dangerous and furthermore shows a lack of sensitivity; visitors should try to avoid such shameless gawking at poverty. |
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