The grassy square
Coloured houses.
Aloísio Morais Martins — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vilamir Azevedo — CC BY-SA 3.0 · MTur Destinos — Public domain · MTur Destinos — Public domain
Trancoso is a village on the coast south of Porto Seguro that grew from a Jesuit settlement founded in 1586 as São João Batista dos Índios. Its heart is the Quadrado, the Square: a broad grassy green lined with small coloured houses, with a simple white church at its end looking out over the sea from the clifftop. The village was unknown until hippies discovered it in the late 1970s, and since the 1990s it has become one of Brazil's most stylish destinations. The houses around the square are now elegant restaurants and shops. Some historians believe Cabral's fleet landed in 1500 at the Rio dos Frades in Trancoso. Below the square long, calm beaches are reached by steps or a slope. The square is loveliest in the evening, when the restaurants and trees light up.
Coloured houses.
On the clifftop.
Below the square.
Trancoso, south of Porto Seguro
The evening, when the restaurants and trees around the square are lit; daytime is for the calm beaches below.