Second only to Rio in the magnificence of its natural setting on the mouth of the enormous bay of Todos os Santos, Salvador is one of that select band of cities which has an electricity you feel from the moment you arrive. Its foundation in 1549 marked the beginning of the permanent occupation of the country by the Portuguese , though it wasn't easy for them. The Caeté Indians killed and ate both the first governor and the first bishop before succumbing, and Salvador was later the scene of a great battle in 1624, when the Dutch destroyed the Portuguese fleet in the bay and took the town by storm, only to be forced out again within a year by a joint Spanish and Portuguese fleet. Much of the plantation wealth of the Recôncavo was used to adorn the city with imposing public buildings, ornate squares and, above all, churches. Today, Salvador is a large, modern city, but significant chunks of it are still recognizably colonial. Taken as a whole it doesn't have the unsullied calm of, say, Olinda but many of its individual churches, monasteries and convents are magnificent, the finest colonial buildings anywhere in Brazil. Hotels in Salvador |
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