Tour departs from Barcelona

Day 1
Barcelona

Arrival to Barcelona.

The first documentary evidence of a Jewish quarter in Barcelona dates back to the 11th century when a street is mentioned que solebat ire ad callem judaicum. The word call means «little road» or «alley». The names spread to the whole set of streets occupied by the Jews, in other words, the Jewish quarter. The municipal authorities had no jurisdiction over the Call which was directly answerable to the king or the royal bailiffs. Of the many references in Barcelona there is the unforgettable case of Montjuïc, the Mons Judaicus or mountain of the Jews where the Jewish community buried their dead for centuries. Inside the call the Jews lived according to the Jewish religious calendar, observed the Sabbaths and religious festivals according to their laws and customs, studied classical texts like the Bible and the Talmud, got married and divorced according to Jewish law and maintained their own social, religious and teaching institutions.

Day 2
Barcelona

Barcelona. City Tour

Visit the Gothic and Jewish Quarters (Call Mayor and Call Menor), the old Synagogue, the Medieval Born quarter and las Ramblas walking promenade. Drive to the Montjuic Mountain with lovely views over the city and Ports and drive to the Eixample district to see the Gaudi buildings.

Day 3
Barcelona

Excursion to Girona

Jewish quarter is a unique, fascinating place. Thanks to the documentation preserved from the Early Middle Ages, we know that between 888 and 890 around twenty five Jewish families settled in the vicinity of Girona cathedral. The community had been growing with new families and in the 14th century there were around one thousand, ten per cent of the city's population. The transformations the district underwent after expulsion of the Jews in 1492 have not prevented the call dels jueus from retaining today a large part of this Kabbalistic mystery which characterised the Jews of Girona in an environment which has remained in exactly the same spot since the Middle Ages.

Girona. City Tour

Visit to this important medieval city, with the Call Jewish quarter, the Bonastruc ça Porta Jewish center, located in the emblematic building that housed the last synagogue of Girona, it is currently the home of the Museum of the History of the Jews and the Nahmanides Institute for Jewish studies. The gothic Cathedral and the Monastery of Sant Pere de Galligants.

Day 4
Barcelona

Excursion to Besalu, Figueres, Castello d'Empuries & Barcelona

The Jews set up in the county of Besalu as from the 9th century and the oldest documents date back to 1229 when King Jaime I the Conqueror informed the Jews of Besalú and Girona that notaries were forbidden from issuing loan contracts with interest at twenty per cent. The county town of Besalú conserves a unique set of Jewish heritage in Catalonia: a Mikveh from the 12th century and traces of a synagogue closed in the 13th century. In 1966 Besalú was declared a national historic-artistic site. The old Jewish quarter (Call) of Figueres, one of the oldest areas in the city is around the Carrer Magre and Plaza de la Llana. The Jews arrived in the city in the second half of the XIII century following a call by the Infante Pere, consistent in that all those Jews who come to the city would be exempt for five years from the payment of taxes and granted them a small space of land free of charge in order to make it grow. Thus was formed the jewish quarter, which had a butcher and own ovens. The Dali fascinating surrealist Theatre-Museum, a monument to the artist´s fervid imagination and the master of Surrealism. The site was extended with the Torre Galatea, where the artistic genius died. The Jewish quarter of Castello d'Empúries came about in the first half of the 13th century in the southeast of the settlement, around the district of Puig de l´Eramala where the first synagogue was built. It still retains the name of carrer dels Jueus (Jews street). The building was left in disuse with the increase in the aljama population making it necessary to build a new synagogue nearer the nerve centre of the town in Puig Mercadal.

Day 5
Barcelona

Departure from Barcelona