April 28, 2025 - Venezia Gheto

 Today we visit the ghetto of Venice. We purchased a self guided tour and spent almost 3 hours touring this Jewish ghetto. It was very interesting and the tour included 2 synagogues. Interestingly, this was the first Jewish ghetto in Europe. The Jewish people had spent centuries on the islands in the lagoon that was Venezia contributing greatly to the economy and society and now they had lost their freedom once again and they were restricted to that area  

You can see the military guys behind me. They were in the Square in the ghetto.

One of the wells that was used by the residents of the ghetto.

These 3x3 inch tiles are inlaid into the stone on the ground with names on them as a reminder to everyone what happened. There are a few around the area  

Doing something like this, brings it to the front of your mind the horrible things the people suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

The first one we visited was Leventine Synagogue. You would never know that there were places of worship in the non-descript buildings that look like apartments although the  buildings do tend to be quite a bit taller than the rest of the buildings in Venice.

The second one was the Spanish synagogue. I had never been in a synagogue before, so that was cool. They are certainly nothing like the Christian cathedrals and churches, that’s for sure. I think most of them had to be invisible so they were in buildings that looked just like apartments. The Spanish synagogue even had a secret garden behind it that had all kinds of plants that are mentioned in the Bible.

In each of the pews, there was a small cupboard in front of it with a prayer shawl and a Torah. They were also numbered and named so that maybe they belong to a certain person.

This is a plaque above what we Catholics would call the alter displaying the 10 commandments in Hebrew. 

The ceilings in both of the synagogues were spectacular 

All men must cover their head when going into a synagogue. I don’t believe women were allowed in the main part of the synagogue because they had a women’s area above to look down on it.

This picture shows the outside of one of the five synagogues. The only way you can tell is by the arched windows on the top floor.

After that, we sat down in the Jewish quarter and shared a pizza. As always, it was delicious  we also shared a Spritz and decided that it probably wasn’t our favourite drink.

We had to try a Spritz, which everybody in Italy seems to have as an after dinner drink.

We came back home because we were pretty tired, but I didn’t wanna miss anything so I decided to go off on my own while Richard had a bit of rest. You start walking in these alleys and they just zigzag back-and-forth and I finally arrived at the Rialto Bridge. It is huge, about the width of four lanes of car traffic. It reminds me of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence with the stores lining the centre of the bridge.

Once I get back home to Richard, we decide to take a walk to find somewhere to eat and so he can also see the Rialto Bridge himself.

Our little entry into the B&B that we stayed at in Venice.

Actually, the city isn’t that big when you start walking around because from where we were staying close to the train station, the Rialto Bridge and San Marco are on the opposite side of the city  

It was a good way to finish off the evening and our last night in Venice. It was a good day; they’ve all been good days. Ciao for now ❤️