1st day Vienna
Arrival in Vienna and check-in at the hotel. A half-day city tour including visit to the Schoenbrunn Palaceboasting 1440 chambers and splendid park, it was a summer residence of emperors and was supposed to be the Austrian equivalent of the Versailles.
2nd day Vienna
Judenplatz (Jewish Square), where the Jewish community is based, has been the centre of Jewish life for 500 years. Today there are the offices of Sephardic organizations and a small beit midrash. Inside one of beit midrashes, there is a subterranean mikvah dating back to the 15th century. Also within the Judenplatz there is a Memorial to Austrian Holocaust Victims with the names of the places where 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
Visit Stadttempel - the only synagogue in Vienna not destroyed during Kristallnacht and New Jewish Museum at Palace Eskeles.
afternoon Visit the sights in and around the Karlsplatz.
evening Concert with music by Johannes Strauss and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, dinner and overnight in Vienna
3rd day Vienna - Krakow
Departure from Vienna and a journey to Krakow, the former capital of Poland, one of the oldest Jewish communities in eastern Europe. Check-in at the hotel and the first guided walk around Europe’s largest medieval Market Square with a splendid, Gothic St. Mary’s Church and the Cloth Hall.
4th day Krakow
Full day sightseeing following the traces of the Jewish heritage - includes Kazimierz – the best preserved Jewish quarter in Europe, with numerous synagogues such as the 15th century Old Synagogoue, Remuh Synagogue with a 16th century cemetery, and the delightful 19th century Temple Synagogue.
afternoon Visit the Galicia Jewish Museum, the premises of the former ghetto and concentration camp in Płaszów, and Oscar Schindler’s factory.
Dinner with Klezmer music at one of Kazimierz’s restaurants.
5th day Auschwitz-Birkenau
Trip to Auschwitz- Birkenau – Nazi extermination camp, and the symbol of Holocaust, where over a million people were murdered in gas chambers. Sightseeing in Auschwitz I – Stammlager with a crematorium and the wall of death, and Auschwitz II – Birkenau with barrack huts and ruins of gas chambers. Return to Krakow and time at leisure
6th day Krakow - Lancut – Lezajsk – Przemysl – Krasiczyn
Journey to Krasiczyn visiting several former Shtetls on the way, such as Łańcut with a superbly redecorated 17th century synagogue and a glamorous palace of the aristocratic Potocki family, and Leżajsk where the famous tzadik Ellimelech is buried, as well as a charming border town of Przemyśl. In the evening we reach Krasiczyn, where we stay overnight in a grandiose 16th century Sapieha family castle, a pearl of the Renaissance architecture in Poland
7th day Krasiczyn - Lviv
Arrival in Lviv. This multicultural metropolis on the edge of East and West, inhabited by numerous nationalities can be found on the world list of cultural heritage.
Tour begins with the Castle Hill offering a panoramic view of the city full of spires and domes. During a guided tour we admire the Medieval town centre with a Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Armenian districts. Walk down the city’s main boulevard to finally end the day with an opera show and dinner at one of the Old Town’s restaurants
8th day Lviv
Lviv was a major focus of Jewish culture. Over 80.000 Jews lived in this city with over 30 Synagogues. There were Orthodox Jews, Hasids, liberals, Zionists, speakers of Polish, German and Yiddish. Tour following the traces of the Lviv Jews - the oldest Golden Rose Synagogue, the Old Town to the Jewish quarter. Stop at the Jewish Centre and the synagogue, the premises of the former ghetto, and the area of the the Janowski Concentration Camp where 120.000 Jews from the Lviv ghetto died
9th day Lviv – Drohobych – Mukacheve (Munkac)
Cross the Carpathians Arc this day to get to Mukacheve via Drohobych - city often associated with writer Bruno Schulz, and in Drohobych if possible we meet Alfred Schrayer, one of the few Jews from the local ghetto who survived it. Visit the Jewish monuments and mementos that have remained in Drohobych, Bruno Schulz’s house, and walk to the Bronicki Forest where 15.000 Drohobych Jews who were murdered there by the Nazis are buried in mass graves.
Advancing higher up a mountain road among picturesque landscapes reach Mukacheve situated on the other side of the Carpathians Arc.
10th day Mukacheve – Mad – Tokaj - Budapest
Mukacheve used to be one of the major Hasidic and Orthodox centres in Hungary before WWII, where the Jewish community constituted more than 40% of the population.
During the stopover in Mukacheve see the synagogue, the Jewish cemetery, and a residence which once belonged to Rakoczy dukes.
Next proceed towards the Ukrainian-Hungarian border. Stop enroute in small place called Mad, with a perfectly preserved 18th century Baroque synagogue, Yeshiva building, and a rabbi’s house, all of them stunningly situated, with a view of the surrounding vineyards. Continue to Tokaj, the capital of the wine region, where an affluent Jewish community used to Live before the war and the local synagogue is among the largest ones in the area.
Jews excelled at wine production and trade since 18th century, they also supplied courts of tzadiks in Poland with kosher wines. Tasting the kosher wines in one of Tokaj’s wine cellars. Evening highway journey to Budapest seems far shorter.
11th day Budapest
Budapest splendidly situated on the banks of the river Danube, has been a seat of sizable Jewish communities for centuries and Jews always played a distinctive role in the capital’s political and cultural life. Nowadays, approximately 100.000 Jews live there, which makes it third largest community in Europe. Multiple synagogues can be found in Budapest, including Europe’s largest one named Dohany Synagogue.
In the morning see Budapest by bus - the Royal Castle, the Castle hill, the Fisherman's Bastion, Matthias Church (‘the coronation church’), Gellért Hill with a magnificent panorama of the city and a view of the famed bridges hanging over the Danube.
In the afternoon visit the impressive edifice of the neo-Gothic Parliament or go to the Margaret Island to enjoy a stay in the Turkish baths – one of Budapest’s landmarks.
In the evening cruise down the Danube with Hungarian cuisine and wine.
12th dayBudapest
We start the tour of the old Jewish quarter, located in the heart of Pest, with the Dohany Street Synagogue. Continue to the Jewish Museum with its collection, visit an Orthodox Kazinczy Street Synagogue and the impresive Holocaust Memorial. Another monument is devoted to Carl Lutz, an Austrian consule who saved thousands of Jews from extermination. Another rescuer of Jews, Raul Walenberg, in front of whose monument we stop in the afternoon. Move on to a rebuilt Medieval synagogue. Finish the tour at the massive central Jewish cemetery in Kozma Street, where hundreds of thousands of the Budapestan Jews are buried, including many world-famous rabbis
13th day Budapest – Sopron - Vienna
Early departure for Vienna. Break in Sopron enroute to see the 14th century synagogue, one of Europe’s oldest ones.
Afternoon at leisure in Vienna.
