Exploring Eastern Europe: Warsaw, Krakow, Prague & Budapest

Depart the US on overnight flights to Warsaw.

Arrive in Warsaw and transfer to the hotel, situated in the center of old town Warsaw. This afternoon, visit the Canaletto room at the reconstructed Royal Castle, damaged in the Second World War.

Warsaw’s reconstruction represents the iron resolution of the Polish people and the victory they achieved by taking back their culture. Warsaw’s Old Town and Royal Castle were added to the UNESCO world heritage list as an “outstanding example of near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century”.

Gather for a welcome dinner this evening at a local restaurant.

Overnight: Hotel Verte

Meals: D

This morning, enjoy a walking tour of the Old Town along narrow cobbled roads and through picturesque streets filled with colorful cafes and shops to visit the city’s Old Market Square, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Stop at the Basilisk statue, admire the bronze Warsaw Mermaid, the symbol of the city, before continuing to the 14th century Gothic Arch-cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

End the morning at the Warsaw Uprising Monument, a memorial that honors those who fought against Nazi occupation and the threat of a Soviet takeover.

After enjoying lunch at a local restaurant, visit the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews where one thousand years of history is told in a symbolic place in the center of Warsaw. Walk to the nearby former Umschlagplatz, the square where hundreds of thousands of Jews were loaded onto trains to concentration camps. A monument engraved with 448 names, it is a symbolic representation of all those imprisoned in the ghetto, erected here in 1988.

Enjoy dinner at a local restaurant.

Overnight: Hotel Verte

Meals: B, L, D

Begin the day at the Church of the Holy Cross to pay tribute to Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and admire the Nicolaus Copernicus Monument before continuing onto the Life Under Communism Museum. After lunch, visit the Galeria Forty Forty located in an abandoned fort in Warsaw. The gallery attempts to eschew the limitations often imposed by closed exhibition spaces and celebrates spontaneity.

Return to the hotel mid-afternoon and enjoy a dinner at leisure.

Overnight: Hotel Verte

Meals: B, L

After breakfast, depart Warsaw and drive 2.5 hours to Czestochowa, considered the spiritual capital of Poland with a rich religious, cultural, and industrial history. Our focus here will be the Jasna Góra monastery complex, one of the most beautiful monasteries in Eastern Europe and home to the famous ‘Black Madonna’ painting as well as a Baroque cathedral and grounds.

Walk a few minutes to enjoy lunch at a local restaurant, Kredens Restaurant in Częstochowa before driving just over two hours to Krakow.

After checking in to the hotel, we will depart for a walking tour of the Old Town of Krakow, including the 700-year old Cloth Hall, St. Mary’s Cathedral, an immense Gothic church and Krakow’s principal temple since the 13th century.

Enjoy dinner at a local restaurant.

Overnight: H15 Palace Hotel

Meals: B, L, D

This morning, meet with Jonathan Ornstein, director of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow and enjoy conversation about contemporary Jewish life in Poland.

Travel aross the Vistula River to the district of Podgorze, where the Nazis established a ghetto square for the Jews that remined in Krakow after the mass deportations of 1941. Continue to the Ghetto Heroes Square that honors the suffering with a series of empty chairs of bronze and iron, symbolizing the empty seats that the deaths of residents of the ghetto left behind. Return across the river and explore old Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz and see the oldest synagogue still staning in Poland.

After lunch at Hamsa, drive to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, added to the UNESCO’s 1st World List of Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1978.

Evening at leisure.

Overnight: H15 Palace Hotel

Meals: B, L

This morning, head west to see the biggest concentration camp from the Second World War, Auschwitz. The guided experience at Auschwitz-Birkenau will take just over three hours.

After lunch head to the Nowa Huta District. Designed as a utopian socialist new town, Nowa Huta was the largest urban spatial development in postwar Poland.

Drive a short distance to Huta Im. T. Sendzimira, the administrative headquarters of the steel factory from which you can see the miles and miles of industrial sprawl built during the Stalinist-era. Here, we have arranged a private visit to the bunkers.

Free evening.

Overnight: H15 Palace Hotel

Meals: B, L

Depart Krakow this morning and drive 5.5 hours to Prague.

Upon arrival, enjoy lunch at Mylned in the old town, where a riot of archetectual history from Gothic to Baroque to Art Deco dominates.

Begin exploring Prague by foot and bus, focusing on former Czechoslovakia’s and Prague’s time under communist rule from 1948 to 1989. Start by walking to the Old Jewish Cemetery, which is among the oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds in the world.

After visiting the cemetery, we will spend time focusing on one of the city’s most famous residents – Franz Kafka. Close by is a sculpture inspiried by Klafka’s short story, “Description of a Struggle”.

Check-in to the hotel and enjoy dinner at a local restaurant.

Overnight: Alchemist Grand Hotel

Meals: B, L, D

This morning, we visit the Museum of Communism before continuing on to the Prague Castle Complex. Walk through the complex to the Lobkowicz Palace Museum, the only privately owned building built in the second half of the 16th century. Set in 22 galleries, the museum displays works by artists such as Antonio Canaletto, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Diego Velázquez, as well as decorative art, military and hunting paraphernalia, musical instruments, and original manuscripts and early prints of composers including Beethoven and Mozart.

After lunch at the Lobkowicz Palace visit the Franz Kafka Museum before returning to the hotel via the Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

Dinner at leisure.

Overnight: Alchemist Grand Hotel

Meals: B, L

Depart the hotel this morning for a 5.5 hour drive to Budapest. After about three hours, we make an en route stop in Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. Enjoy its preserved old towns to Goth and buildings inspired by art nouveau, to its baroque palaces and centuries-old cathedrals and castles.

After lunch in the old town, enjoy a walking tour stopping in the Main Square, admiring the famous Bratislava Street statues, National Opera and the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Cathedral.

Continue onto Budapest, just over a two-hour drive. Cross the Danube River and transfer to the Hotel Moments sailing past neo-Gothic turrets of the Hungarian Parliament, the palm leaves Statue of Liberty on the Gellert Hill, the cupolas of the Art Nouveau Gellert Spa, the elegant curves of the Gresham Palace and the soaring domes of the majestic St Stephens Basilica.

Overnight: Hotel Moments

Meals: B, L, D

Depart the hotel this morning on foot to explore Pest. Stop at Liberty Square, a symbol of freedom from communism and explore the huge neo-Gothic Parliament (Orszaghaz), the most visible building of Budapest’s left bank.

Visit the Shoes on the Danube Promenade, a haunting tribute to a horrific time in history where approximately 20,000 Jews were brutally shot along the bank after being forced to remove their shoes.

Cross the river and enjoy lunch at Buda before visiting Buda Castle, the former Hungarian and Austro-Hungarian royal palace. End the day at Budapest’s Gellert Hill at “The Garden of Philosophy”.

Dinner at leisure.

Overnight: Hotel Moments

Meals: B, L

After breakfast, stop first at Hero’s Square before the House of Terror. Continue on to the incredible Ezavo Ervin Library, a stunning step back in time when libraries were like mansions.

Enjoy lunch today at the Central  Café where some of the greatest minds in the history of Hungarian art and science converged in this café. After lunch, visit the Opera House for a guided tour, one of the most beautiful Neo-Renaissance buildings in Europe.

The remainder of the afternoon is at leisure – the suggested activity is a visit to one of the baths.

Enjoy a farewell dinner tonight at a very special restaurant called Konyy. Each week, the menu changes inspired by a particular book.

Overnight: Hotel Moments

Meals: B, L, D

Transfer to the airport for international flights home.