Santa Cruz gives Flowers is the administrative center of the island that, according to historical treaties, received statute of city in 1548 and it became administrative center of the western group of the archipelago in 1841. Located in center of the coast this, Santa Cruz she is, probably, the only city of the world where the runway of the airport arrives almost at downtown (saying in other words… can be arrived at the center from the airport after a small stroll). In any case the noise of the airplanes does not bother since few airplanes per day arrive. For the inhabitants of Santa Cruz the arrival of an airplane is received like pleasant and a welcome interruption of monotonía daily since normally it means to receive or to dismiss some relative or friend.
The few places that deserve to be visited in Santa Cruz can be seen in a short stroll by the city, since are in center all, marked by the Praça do Marques de Pombal, the main seat with the city council of S XVII and the chapel of the Spirit Santo. Next to this seat claustro is the old Franciscano monastery with inner his, constructed in first half of S XVII and that lodges a part of the Museu it give Flowers, the ethnographic museum of the island. The visitor can learn everything what means the life in this island, including the whaling industry, the art of navigation and even “scrimshaw” an art of the sailors of the S XIX in which engravings in ivory become of the whales - the ivory of the sea. There is also a department of Sacred Art. Next to the museum it is the Igreja de São Boaventura, whose construction began in 1640 and it concluded 100 years later. This church of Baroque style with valuable stone reliefs and that also it lodged to the hospital when the monks left Portugal was in its origin leaves from a Franciscano monastery. Its interior, that also shows Mexican and South American influences, counts on a ceiling of painted cedar and recorded very elaborated. The second part of this museum, basically of old furniture, is lodged in the House Museu, a house of the S XVII, probably oldest of the island.