Feira de Santana: Cultural History and Tradition

Feira de Santana can be explored through places where the city’s history, folk culture, and artistic work take different forms. A historic residence, a market for handicrafts and folk culture, and the CUCA workshops each offer a distinct focus. When planning your trip, it is worth first considering whether you would like to focus more on historic sites, market life, or artistic themes.

History, Markets, and Artistic Practice

The Casarão dos Olhos D'Água is considered the residence from which Feira de Santana grew. It was converted into a Casa da Cultura and houses the Memorial de Maria Quitéria. The city’s origins and the building’s cultural use are thus brought together in one place.

The Mercado de Arte Popular is located in the city center and is considered the city’s main tourist attraction. Handicrafts, Cordel literature, and typical foods are sold there; performances by artists and folk culture groups are also held. Market offerings and cultural programming thus come together in one specific place. Vendors and programming may change.

CUCA has a different focus: it offers ongoing artistic training through workshops in dance and body movement, visual arts, music, and theater. In the wider destination of Feira de Santana, the building was constructed between 1912 and 1916; today it houses CUCA. The Escola Normal was established there in 1927. Workshop offerings may change.

Micareta is part of the city’s historic festival culture. In Feira de Santana, it developed into a mass festival with thousands of revelers, as well as large Cordão and alternative Blocos. If you would like to plan your trip around a visit during Micareta, check the specific event dates in advance.

Cultural and Leisure Profiles in the Wider Destination of Feira de Santana

Other cultural and scientific themes can be explored in the wider destination of Feira de Santana. The Museu Regional de Arte was founded on March 26, 1967, and is considered Feira de Santana’s first museum institution. Its collection includes modernist paintings from Brazil and England. The Catedral de Santana stands on the site of the chapel around which Feira de Santana developed. The art collection and the city’s origins thus offer different historical perspectives.

The Caminhada do Folclore is also part of this broader picture: it takes place during Folklore Week in August and showcases groups from the Sertão and the Recôncavo. If visiting for this event is important to you, check that year’s program.

The Museu Antares de Ciência e Tecnologia offers films and demonstration labs covering physics, chemistry, biology, the human body, the universe, geological eras, and dinosaurs; it also features a replica of a NASA rocket. At the Museu Parque do Saber, a planetarium with fulldome projection technology is the main attraction. Twelve films cover scientific, historical, and cultural themes. The institutions therefore offer different focuses: a broad range of natural science topics in one, and a planetarium with fulldome projection in the other.

Different options are also available for exercise and observing nature. The Parque da Lagoa Grande has a 2.3-kilometer route around the lagoon for walking and cycling. The Parque da Lagoa has a lagoon and five pedal boats, and offers opportunities to observe the fauna and flora of the Caatinga. These descriptions provide a guide to a route around a lagoon or to pedal boating and nature observation.

For orientation, the virtual tourism map of Feira de Santana catalogs attractions, tourism products, and tourism services. Its content may change.

Choosing the Right Focus for Your Trip

When looking for a vacation rental, the Mercado de Arte Popular’s location in the city center can be a useful point of reference if market life and folk culture are to shape your stay. If you are more interested in art history, workshops, science, or nature, you can take that focus into account when choosing your base.

Discover more destinations: Grande, Brumado, Olivença, Caravelas, Barra Do Gil, Tareco, Mata De São João, Praia do Forte.

View the broader travel overview: Bahia.