The heart of the old Portuguese colonial town occupies a low bluff above the Geba River. A handful of two-storey administrative buildings, a small covered market arcade, and the Praça — the central square — make up what remains of Bafatá's 19th-century identity as a regional trading and administrative centre for the eastern interior.
The buildings are in various states of repair: some still used as government offices, others crumbling behind faded pastel stucco. The scale is modest — this was never a wealthy colonial town — but the ensemble gives a clear sense of how Portuguese West Africa looked in its quieter outposts. An hour's slow walk through the quarter takes in the cathedral, the market, and the Cabral birthplace, all within a few hundred metres of each other.