We walked out of the train station in Venice into mobs of people. There were 20 in our group. I was part of a family reunion that was not my family. My friend had invited me to join her on a trip to Italy, visiting family in Bassano del Grappa, a town about an hour outside of Venice.

We followed the crowd deeper into the masses, and I was quickly engulfed in the crowd and swept down the crowded street. A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side, flat against the wall of a building. I started to pull free, but stopped when I saw Juan-Carlo, my host in Bassano, holding on to my arm. There were 80,000 people in Venice that day. A record for a city heavy with tourists.

“Vamos,” he said and led us down a tiny alley away from the crowd. We navigated streets and alleys, walked through a park, over countless bridges, and the crowd slowly thinned. I had spent three days prior getting lost in Venice, navigating with a paper map and a digital map. He and his wife led us without a map and without hesitation to the Jewish Ghetto.

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