Tourist Attraction in Salvador:
Pelourinho
Pelourinho is the restored historic district of Salvador de Bahia. Since 1985 it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. Literally pelhorinho in Portuguese means the pillory pole, where slaves were flogged. This name was first given to Salvador at the small triangular square in the heart of the city where public flagellations took place, then ended up giving in the name of the whole upper district of the city, corresponding to the historical nucleus of the settlement. Dominating the port city below (to which it is connected, as well as by some steep roads, by the historian Elevador Lacerda), Pelourinho was built by the Portuguese with particular impulse during the colonial boom, between the eighteenth and nineteenth century, as a residential center, administrative and religious life of the city. Abandoned for most of the twentieth century, only recently has enjoyed a series of restorations that have brought it back to its former glory, culminating with the inclusion of the site in the UNESCO list. Pelourinho develops around some squares. From the Elevador Lacerda you reach the terrace of the Praça Thomé de Souza, now home to the new Municipality, once located in the nearby Rio Branco palace. This square was built in the 19th century after the demolition of the Jesuit monastery. A little further north is Praça da Sé, which overlooks the Misericordia complex, once Santa Casa and now a museum. In the immediate vicinity the widening of the Terreiro de Jesus, where the cathedral faces, the University (which houses the Afro-Brasileiro Museum), the church of San Pietro, that of the Third Dominican Order and, in a contiguous square, the church and convent of San Francesco, one of the most significant baroque churches in the whole of Brazil. In the streets of the district, characterized by historic buildings often decorated by the bright colors of the façades, you can meet many religious and cultural institutions: the Museu Abelardo Rodriguez, the Museu Tempostal, the house-museum of Jorge Amado, the church of the Third Order of St. Francis and that of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos. From Largo do Pelourinho the district fades into the Carmo (Carmine), characterized by more modest but colorful houses in the facades, which continues in the one of Sant'Antonio "Alem do Carmo" ("behind the Carmine"), at the end of which the Fort of Santo Antônio demarcates the hill with its view on the underlying port. Word processing: Giovambattista Spagnuolo (Myooni)