In the centre of Salvador (São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos), capital of the state of Bahia and of Brasil until 1763 – before Rio, before Brasilia – life on the street is very lively.

Thunderous drumming from the top floor

Its architecture is two- and three-storey baroque town houses, religious buildings and open squares.

Church under renovation, Largo Terreiro de Jesus

The historic Pelourinho core is cobbled though not pedestrianised. It is named for public pillories or whipping posts (now removed) used in the past to punish slaves. The slaves, many of them Yoruba speakers from West Africa, were quartered in the basements of the houses – you wonder how they fared during the brief but heavy downpours here.

Tourist family posing for the camera in borrowed Afro-Brasilian costume

And though the streets are thronged with people, it’s disturbing on a number of levels that you can walk the streets of this UNESCO World Heritage Site because the Afro-Brasilians who lived here were displaced to outlying suburbs, and because of a visible armed police presence.

Hillside village (favela) with not a square inch unused

The Afro-Brasilian heritage is evident from the moment you arrive. Better known as Bahia, Salvador is one of the largest population centres for people of African origin outside Africa – about 80% of the city’s 2.5 million people  are of African or mixed heritage, according to the 2010 census. There seems little racial tension, although the poor, service staff and entertainers are overwhelmingly black, just as in other parts of Brasil.

Sweet-voiced samba singer in the excellent Mama Bahia restaurant, Rua das Portas do Carmo …

… where he looks on from under the street light

Bahianos are well aware of their cultural heritage, whether displayed in the excellent Museu Afro Brasileiro  http://www.mafro.ceao.ufba.br/  (MAFRO), or in public monuments like this bronze of Zumbi dos Palmares  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumbi  in Largo do Pelourinho.

Spear-wielding seventeenth-century African Brasilian resistance leader, with boarded-up cinema behind

They also know about the non-African Bahiano heritage – a policeman identified for us with pride the building now housing MAFRO as the first medical school in Brasil (in 1808 when the Portuguese Court moved to Brasil, I discover). At the time of the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Brasil in 1759, it was the largest Jesuit college outside Rome.

Now MAFRO, ex-Jesuit College, ex-Royal Military Hospital, ex-medical school

Circular (lecture?) room behind ex-medical school, over-run now by stray cats

Just down the street we found health services of a more popular nature.

The Old Black snuff (rapé), good for colds, sinusitis, headache, migraine, asthma … and snoring? (roncaria)

An appealing aspect of this historic centre – and characteristically Brasilian – is the mix of high and popular culture. Like the local moqueca (fish stew), it makes for a delicious whole. And there is much more to sample on the Bahiano menu.

Quilt in fabric craft shop near Terreiro de Jesus

Floor of sacristy, Catedral Basílica de Salvador