Barra is a neighborhood located in the south zone of the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Barra is one of the most traditional neighborhoods of the city, and is also one of the most popular neighborhoods for tourists, with many attractions, like Farol da Barra Lighthouse, Morro do Cristo Hill, Farol da Barra Beach, and Porto da Barra Beach.
Barra has a large number of beaches, shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, residences, fitness clubs, banks, parks, events, and historic monuments. The neighborhood is subdivided in the following areas: Jardim Brasil, Porto da Barra, Avenida Centenário, and Ladeira da Barra. The beach neighborhood closest to Pelourinho, which also has a lot of tourist infrastructure.
It is bathed by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and the entrance to the All Saints Bay to the west. And in preserving its landscape a considerable body of historical and architectural value to Brazil, and the Lighthouse is the most famous icon, alongside the strengths of St. Mary and St. Diogo.
The district is home of the renowned Portuguese Hospital ("Hospital Português") and the Spanish Hospital ("Hospital Espanhol"), both founded by these two countries in the city. Shopping Barra mall is the main and largest shopping center of the developed south zone of Salvador. Besides being a neighborhood with many hotels and apartments to rent, especially during Brazilian carnival.
Language institutes, such as, Alliance française (French) and Instituto Cervantes (Spanish), have branches in Barra. Also the neighborhood is famous nationally and internationally for its Carnival and New Year's Eve.
History
Caramuru assisted Francisco Pereira Coutinho, the first captain of Bahia, in establishing the settlement of Pereira in the present neighborhood of Ladeira da Barra in 1534. This had to be abandoned after mistreatment by its settlers caused the local Tupi Indians to turn hostile. After the establishment of Salvador in 1549, the area of the former settlement at Pereira became known as Vila Velha ("Old Town").
Today is the slopes of Barra and constructing the "one hundred homes to residents" who, twelve years later still would be found by Thomas Cole at the time of the founding of the city, called Old Town, said in the letters of the Jesuits and the documents of the first governor, general. Where today is the church of Santo Antonio da Barra was built a fort, a castle made of pug and wood.
It also occurs in the first experiment of mixing culture with the native indigenous white European in the history of Brazil, taking in figures from Diogo Alvares Correia, the Caramuru and his wife, the Indian Catarina Paraguaçu the key historical elements, and this time named after the poet Gregório de Mattos of "the Adam of Kilwinning," father of civilization Bahia.
The Santo Antônio da Barra Fort, one of the most important historic constructions in Brazil, houses the Nautical Museum of Bahia, comprising nautical instruments, shipwreck finds, miniatures of important vessels, military artifacts, and utensils. The fort itself and its lighthouse, Farol da Barra, which is also how the whole complex is often referred to, are the museum's top attractions.
The fort is Brazil's oldest military construction. In 1534, long before the foundation of Salvador in 1549, defensive structures made of loose rock and adobe were first put in place on the tip of the Santo Antônio peninsula. The gneiss formation was known as Ponta do Padrão, for a marker (padrão) installed there in 1501 by order of the Portuguese king to signal occupation of the colony.
Local Governor Francisco de Souza ordered the construction of a structure made of stone and lime mortar in 1598. The fort was rebuilt, renovated and redesigned several times over the years, always under the aegis of Saint Anthony, patron of Salvador, whose image at the fort was awarded military ranks, up to lieutenant-colonel, from the early 18th century to 1912.
One of the highlights in the fortification's history was its occupation by Dutch forces in 1624 and reconquest by the Portuguese colonizers that same year.
It was the current Porto da Barra Beach, which the governor-general Tomé de Sousa landed with men and material, founding the city of San Salvador da Bahia of All Saints in the year of 1549, the sixteenth century. At the time, the town had grown to more than a thousand inhabitants between Indians and Europeans, after the creation of the capital, the Old Town was slowly emptied until it disappears completely, in the seventeenth century.