Rio Vermelho is the bohemian heart of Salvador — a working-class neighbourhood that became the city's main live-music quarter from the 1970s onward, when novelists and musicians moved in. Today it has the best concentration of bars in the city, an excellent live-music scene built around forró and samba clubs, and the acarajé stalls that come out at sunset around the Largo de Santana.
The neighbourhood is also a centre of candomblé practice and the focus of the annual Iemanjá festival in February. The two small beaches — Rio Vermelho and Mariquita — are not for swimming but are good for the evening crowd.