Afro-Brazilian Bahia

The journey in one line

9 stops in Brazil so far. The first rung is 2 of them, and the list keeps growing.

Around forty per cent of everyone taken across the Atlantic was landed in Brazil, and Salvador was the main port. The city is still majority Black and its culture, food, religion and music are Afro-Brazilian before they are anything else. The list was kept to five places while the local-source pass the framework asks for was outstanding. That pass has now been done and four more places have been added from Brazilian government and museum pages. It is still a selection and not a survey.

Slavery lasted longer in Brazil than anywhere else in the Americas, until 1888. Resistance lasted just as long. Palmares in the hills of Alagoas held out for most of a century as an independent community of thousands. What survived is not only memory. Candomble is a living religion with its own houses and its own authority. The Sisterhood of the Good Death in Cachoeira has been run by Black women for two centuries.

Salvador's historic centre holds the church, the two museums, the Casa do Benin and the fort within a short walk of each other. Cachoeira is two hours inland, on the Paraguaçu. Serra da Barriga is in Alagoas, a long way north. Museu Afro Brasil is in São Paulo. The Pelourinho is busy, and pickpocketing is common; the usual city precautions apply.

Where it goes

The stops, in order

What a visit means here. A visit means entering the named church, museum, memorial park or historic district. A terreiro visit is only ever by invitation and is never required for this journey.

1. 1

   Historic Centre of Salvador de Bahia

   Pelourinho

   Salvador, Brazil

   

   The Pelourinho is the old upper town of Brazil's first capital, a dense grid of Renaissance-era streets and coloured houses inscribed by UNESCO in 1985. It was the centre of the sugar trade and of the slave market that supplied it, and it is now the heart of Afro-Brazilian cultural life in the city.

   What counts as a visit

   The historic upper town, walked.

   Access

   A living neighbourhood with a heavy tourist trade; ordinary city care is advised, especially at night. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

2. 2

   Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos

   Salvador, Brazil

   

   Founded in 1685 by one of the first Black brotherhoods in Brazil and built by its own members, many of them enslaved, over almost a century. It stands at the top of the Pelourinho and still holds Mass with Afro-Brazilian drumming. The city of Salvador records it as listed national heritage since 1938.

   What counts as a visit

   The church interior and its azulejo panels.

   Access

   An active church with a small admission charge and weekday visiting hours. Checked 2026-09-16.

   A place of reflection

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

3. 3

   Museu Afro-Brasileiro

   Museu Afro-Brasileiro da Universidade Federal da Bahia

   Salvador, Brazil

   

   The federal university's museum of Afro-Brazilian culture, in the old medical faculty building on Terreiro de Jesus. Its best known holding is a set of carved cedar panels of the orixas by Carybe, made for the building in 1968.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum galleries.

   Access

   University museum hours; closed at weekends in some periods. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

4. 4

   Museu Afro Brasil

   São Paulo, Brazil

   

   Founded in 2004 by the artist and curator Emanoel Araujo in Ibirapuera Park, this is the largest museum of Afro-Brazilian history and art in the country, with some six thousand works across five centuries.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum galleries in Ibirapuera Park.

   Access

   Closed Mondays; free on some days. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

5. 5

   Parque Memorial Quilombo dos Palmares

   Serra da Barriga

   União dos Palmares, Brazil

   

   Serra da Barriga held the largest and longest-lasting quilombo in the Americas, a community of people who had escaped slavery and governed themselves for most of the seventeenth century under leaders including Ganga Zumba and Zumbi. The memorial park on the hilltop was opened in 2007 and the site has been listed since 1986.

   What counts as a visit

   The memorial park on the hilltop above Uniao dos Palmares.

   Access

   Managed by the Fundacao Cultural Palmares; a rural hilltop site reached by road from Uniao dos Palmares. Checked 2026-09-16.

   A place of reflection

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

6. 6

   Museu Nacional da Cultura Afro-Brasileira

   MUNCAB

   Salvador, Brazil

   

   A museum of Afro-Brazilian culture in the historic centre of Salvador, with a collection covering religion, dress, work and visual art. It runs school programmes, open calls for Black visual artists and a register of guides, which is a fair picture of what it is for.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum galleries in the historic centre.

   Access

   Ticketing, school bookings and free-entry days are published on the museum's own site. Checked 2026-09-17.

   Check access · last checked September 17, 2026

7. 7

   Forte de Santo Antônio Além do Carmo

   Forte da Capoeira

   Salvador, Brazil

   

   A fort begun in 1695 above the Largo de Santo Antônio, restored and given over to capoeira. The city of Salvador records the fort's dates and the name it now goes by. Its rooms hold capoeira academies of several lineages, which train there in the evenings.

   What counts as a visit

   The fort courtyard and the capoeira academies open to visitors.

   Access

   A working building rather than a museum. Training times vary by academy and are posted at the fort. Checked 2026-09-17.

   Check access · last checked September 17, 2026

8. 8

   Casa do Benin

   Salvador, Brazil

   

   A museum on the Largo do Pelourinho opened in 1988 out of an exchange between Bahia and Cotonou, in a house remodelled inside by Lina Bo Bardi. The city records that its collection comes from the Gulf of Benin, the region most of the Africans brought to the Recôncavo were taken from.

   What counts as a visit

   The museum rooms on the Largo do Pelourinho.

   Access

   In the historic centre, a short walk from the Rosário dos Pretos church. Checked 2026-09-17.

   Check access · last checked September 17, 2026

9. 9

   Cachoeira

   Conjunto Arquitetônico e Paisagístico de Cachoeira

   Cachoeira, Brazil

   

   A sugar and tobacco town on the Paraguaçu, made a national monument in 1971. IPHAN describes Cachoeira and São Félix across the river as a single urban organism. It is the home of the Irmandade da Boa Morte, a sisterhood of Black women that has run its own August festival for around two centuries, and one of the centres of the samba de roda of the Recôncavo.

   What counts as a visit

   The listed town, walked, and its museums and churches.

   Access

   About 100 kilometres from Salvador. The Boa Morte festival falls in August and the town fills; the sisterhood runs it and sets its own terms. Checked 2026-09-17.

   Seasonal

   Check access · last checked September 17, 2026

Respect and access

Candomblé terreiros are houses of religion, not attractions. Some receive visitors at public ceremonies and some do not. A terreiro is never a required stop on this journey and never will be. If you are invited, go on the terms you are given, and do not photograph or record anything without explicit permission. The Pelourinho takes its name from the whipping post that stood in the square. Bear that in mind while you are enjoying the music. Capoeira at the Forte da Capoeira is training, not a performance laid on for visitors. Watch from the edge of the room and ask before filming.

Seasonal

Access follows a season, a calendar or an event rather than being open year round.

A place of reflection

This is a memorial or a site of atrocity. Visitors are asked to be quiet, to follow the custodian's guidance on photography, and to treat it as somewhere people grieve.

Opening times, prices, permits and eligibility change. Nothing on this page is a statement about today. Follow the Check access link on a place before you plan around it.

Sources

• museuafrobrasil.org.brhttp://www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/ · checked September 16, 2026
• mafro.ceao.ufba.brhttps://mafro.ceao.ufba.br/ · checked September 16, 2026
• pelourinhodiaenoite.salvador.ba.gov.brhttps://pelourinhodiaenoite.salvador.ba.gov.br/igreja-de-nossa-senhora-do-rosario-dos-pretos/ · checked September 16, 2026
• whc.unesco.orghttps://whc.unesco.org/en/list/309 · checked September 16, 2026
• gov.brhttps://www.gov.br/palmares/pt-br/departamentos/protecao-preservacao-e-articulacao/serra-da-barriga-1/parque-memorial-quilombo-dos-palmares · checked September 16, 2026
• museuafrobrasileiro.com.brhttps://www.museuafrobrasileiro.com.br/ · checked September 17, 2026
• pelourinhodiaenoite.salvador.ba.gov.brhttps://pelourinhodiaenoite.salvador.ba.gov.br/forte-de-santo-antonio-alem-do-carmo/ · checked September 17, 2026
• pelourinhodiaenoite.salvador.ba.gov.brhttps://pelourinhodiaenoite.salvador.ba.gov.br/museu-casa-do-benin/ · checked September 17, 2026
• gov.brhttps://www.gov.br/iphan/pt-br/patrimonio-cultural/patrimonio-material/bens-tombados/conjuntos-urbanos-tombados-cidades-historicas/nordeste/cachoeira-ba · checked September 17, 2026

TravelDay selected and grouped these places. Naming a custodian, a government agency or UNESCO as a source is not a claim that any of them endorsed this journey.