Travel Guide Porto-Novo
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Porto-Novo, "the red city", is distinguished by a rich architectural heritage that bears the mark of the "Brazilians". These descendants of slaves have introduced a style known as Afro-Brazilian, particularly visible in the Oganla district, south of the old city. More functional than aesthetic, the Afro-Brazilian architecture allows to keep the houses cool, thanks to the presence of two verandas on the floor. It seduced the colonists who asked the Afro-Brazilians to build them houses in this style. Today, many of them have been destroyed and those still standing are generally in very poor condition, and often marked with a "Classified Site" sign. To prevent them from being razed to the ground, the School of African Heritage has succeeded in having them listed as historical monuments. With the hope of seeing one day Unesco classify them as World Heritage of Humanity. It remains now to restore them.The old city is, for its part, under African influence, with its temples and its royal palace which were not destroyed by the colonists, these having settled further west. The old colonial buildings now house government offices. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the deputies have been sitting in the Palace of the Republic, formerly the Palace of the Governors.Also worth seeing: the Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes cathedral and, in another register, the villas built by the Yoruba merchants on the outskirts of the city, rich and flashy!The city is organized into four main sectors. In the center are the historic districts, distributed over a vast set of winding dirt streets. To the south, on the side of the lagoon, commerce has logically developed. The traditional market is located here, as were the trading posts in the past. To the west is the administrative city, built around the former governor's palace. On the outskirts and to the east are built the residential quarters following a more geometrical plan. The urban planning of the old "indigenous" city, influenced by the two cultural areas of Adja and Yoruba, has three essential elements: the royal palace, a symbol of power; the markets; and the defense system, consisting of a deep moat and a rampart. In addition, "lineage" voodoo, brought by the great families to certain districts, also played a role in the organization of the urban space
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