| | Overview (Source: Frommers) |
A visit to Salvador is a chance to step back in time, to stroll through a perfectly preserved city from the 16th and 17th centuries. It's a chance to experience Brazil's close connection to Africa -- to taste this connection in the food, hear it in the music, see it in the faces of the people. All of these elements -- architecture, food, and music -- mix together in Pelourinho, the restored colonial heart of the city of Salvador. Beyond Salvador, a trip to Bahia is a chance to stock up on two of Brazil's greatest non-exportable products -- sand and sunshine. The beaches of Bahia are some of Brazil's most varied and beautiful. They come blessed by sunshine, lapped by a warm southern ocean, and infused with a laid-back spirit that is uniquely Bahian. The Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci -- the one who later gave his name to a pair of continents -- was the first European to set eyes on the Baía de Todos os Santos, the beautiful bay around which Salvador now stands. He arrived in the service of the king of Portugal on November 1, 1501. By 1549, the new city and colony of Salvador was important enough that the Portuguese king dispatched royal governor Tomé de Souza together with a small army to protect it from the French and Dutch. The wealth of the new colony was not in silver or gold, but something almost as lucrative: sugar. Sugar cane thrived in the Northeast. As plantations grew, the Portuguese planters found themselves starved for labor, and so plunged
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