Site visited in December 2020. Before São Cristóvão we visited 12 WHS in Brazil and they were all worth a visit. Although the Brazilian list can be accused of overloading with colonial towns, selected examples (Ouro Preto, Diamantina, Goias) were certainly outstanding in their category. However, the visit to São Cristóvão left a great dissatisfaction. The town is not particularly distinguished, the historical center is small and rather overlooked by tourists. São Francisco Square itself makes a nice impression, but it is definitely hard to notice the 'outstanding universal value' of this place. It was even harder for us, because both churches entered and the Provincial Palace were closed due to the pandemic.

The negative experience was somewhat sweetened while walking around the historic center and visiting the Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Vitória open church. It seems that according to ICOMOS, adding the historic center to this entry would make more sense than listing the square itself. But even in that case, it would be by far the worst place on the Brazilian UNESCO list. Fortunately, the visit to São Cristóvão did not require us to deviate too much from our route from Serra da Capivara to Salvador. It took us maybe an hour to explore the town, the other hour to a delicious and very cheap lunch in a local bar, and 4 hours later we checked into the historic center of Salvador.