The vaulted lanes
Narrow dark passages between high stone walls.
Aylaross — Public domain · Rafa Esteve — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Assayas — CC BY-SA 4.0 · No machine-readable author provided. Naevus assumed (based on copyright claims). — CC BY-SA 3.0
**Among the best-preserved medieval Jewish quarters in Europe — narrow dark lanes between high stone walls** — at the heart of the old city. ⚠ **The *Call* is the Catalan word for a Jewish quarter**, **and Girona held one of Catalonia's most important Jewish communities** from the 9th century until **1492**. ✅ **It was an intellectual centre**: ⚠ **from here came **Nahmanides** (Moses ben Nahman)** — **one of the great medieval commentators on the Torah and Talmud**, **born in Girona in 1194**; ✅ **and here the Girona school of Kabbalah**. ⚠ **Then the expulsion**: **the edict of 1492 ended Jewish life in all Spain** — ✅ **the quarter's doors were closed and built over**; **so its fabric was preserved by accident**. ✅ **Walking it is free**, and it holds a museum of Jewish history.
Narrow dark passages between high stone walls.
On a former synagogue site, on the community and the expulsion.
The main street, and once a Roman road.
Carrer de la Forca, 17004 Girona, Spain
**Because it was sealed rather than demolished — and sealing preserved what development would have erased.** ⚠ **What happened in 1492**: **the edict of expulsion ordered Spain's Jews to convert or leave within months** — ✅ **so most of Girona's Jews left**, **and their houses and synagogue were abandoned**. ⚠ **And instead of the quarter being pulled down and rebuilt** — ✅ **its lanes were blocked and its houses absorbed into neighbouring buildings**; **so its walls became internal walls**, **and its lanes closed passages or cellars**. ✅ **The result**: **the medieval fabric survived as it was, under and behind later buildings** — ⚠ **frozen**, **with no modernisation, widening or new streets**. ✅ **Then it was rediscovered in the 20th century**: **research and restoration began in the 1960s and 1970s** — ⚠ **the blocked lanes were opened and later additions removed**, ✅ **and the quarter emerged nearly as it had been**. ⚠ **The irony is a hard one**: **what preserved the place is the event that emptied it of its people**. ✅ **The same pattern appears elsewhere** — **Barcelona's Call and parts of Toledo**; ⚠ **but Girona's is the most complete**.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.