Religious experiences in Italy

Italy is a deeply Catholic country (heck, it's the Catholic country), and while most modern Italians are fairly non-observant in their daily lives and may only attend church on major holidays, religion and the church still exert a huge influence on Italy's culture and, obviously, its history. Attend services in at least one church at least once during your trip...

Every Wednesday morning that the Pope is in residence in Rome, he addresses and blesses his many international visitors: in Piazza San Pietro on warmer days and inside the Sala Nervi during the winter. Join other pilgrims to see and hear the leader of the Catholic Church. Catholic or not, you'll find a Papal Audience a very special and memorable experience...

Rome is the world capital of Christendom, home to the Pope himself and more than 900 churches, from tiny frescoed chapels to St. Peter's basilica. Explore everything from guided walks of St. Peter's to excursions to the catacombs, audiences with the Pope to seminars on the medeival basilicas of Rome, an academic tour of the Renaissance papal state to a tour of the famous and elaborate nativity creches around Christmas time, here are the best Christian-themed tours or Rome...

The world's first ghetto was the walled quarter Venice created for its Jews in the 16th century. These days, Venice is home only to an estimated 500–600 Jews, of which only 30 or so still live in the historic Ghetto. It remains, however, the focal point of Jewish life in Venice, with two operating synagogues, a Jewish library, day school, kosher food shops, a Jewish bakery, and—this being Venice, after all—a glass shop selling tiny glass rabbis and glass Hanukkah lamps...

With all the focus on Rome's role as the capital of Christendom, many folks forget that Rome is also home to one of the oldest Jewish populations in the world outside of Israel or Egypt. The kernal of Rome's Jewish community dates back to the age of the Roman Empire, when Jews emigrated to Rome to settle. To this day, Rome has a thriving Jewish population, with the focus still centered on the medieval Jewish Ghetto neighborhood, a tangle of quiet streets directly north of Tiber Island...