Recife Antigo

7/19/12
Every city has a downtown, a center, or an old area, usually representing the origin of the city. Recife is no exception. We toured "Recife Antigo" today and visited first an old Jewish synagogue. It was founded in 1633 when the Jewish immigrants from Holland came over with the Dutch invasion, as well as New Christians from Europe, who already lived in Recife.
The original walls are still there:

And so is the mikvah, where men and women bathed for purification rites. In fact, it is because of the mikvah that the synagogue was discovered 300 hundred years after it was build. Acácio, our tour guide, said that an appliance store used to function in this building, and when they couldn't figure out where the water leak was coming from, they removed the flooring and found the mikvah. The city then decided to restore the place and turn into a museum.

After the synagogue we visited the Convento Franciscano de Santo António. This convent is one of the oldest buildings in Recife, dating back to 1606. Some of the awesome things we saw were the great amount of gold leaf in the chapel, also the beautiful Portuguese "azulejos" that depicted religious scenes, like the story of Adam and Eve. I always enjoy seeing the "azulejos":)

Our guide did tell us that this convent and adjacent church has Portuguese, Moorish and Dutch azulejos.
The amount of gold leaf used was insane! 50-60 kilos is a lot of gold... The amazing church next to the convent was not open to the public but our guide sneaked us in there, and it was so beautiful. I love catholic churches. Some people may say that if you see one you see them all, but I don't think so.