6 days / 5 nights  

Day 1  Cracow

Upon arrival to Cracow airport meet your local host and transfer to your hotel. En route panoramic guided tour of the city including the Old Town and the Jewish quarter and views and riding by the house where Karol Wojtyla spent the Krakow period of his life until ordination. When the Wojtylas, father and son, moved to Krakow, they set up housekeeping in the tiny basement of a gray two-story house at #10 Tyniecka Street, on the western bank of the Vistula. Karol's maternal uncle, Robert Kaczorowski, a master leather maker who built it after WW, owned the house.

D/O Cracow

Day 2  Cracow

Morning walking sightseeing tour of Cracow features guide who leads us to the center of the Old Town Main Market Square where we can see the 14th century St. Mary’s Basilica facing us from across Market Square. Note the uneven twin spires on this wonderful example of Gothic architecture, St. Mary's Church, Renaissance Cloth Hall, the 13th century Franciscan Church and Jagiellonnian University, another innovation of Kazimierz the Great, in 1364. Two notable students are Nicolaus Copernicus and Karol Wojtyla. The later also taught here. You should see the Copernicus Globe, in the museum, as it is the first globe to depict the American continents. Afternoon tour features the Wawel Castle and Cathedral. You will also have a tour of the Cathedral. Here Karol Wojtyla said his first mass after ordination, Church on the Rock and Kazimierz District. Dinner with folklore entertainment overnight.

D/O Cracow

Day 3  Cracow - Wieliczka - Tyniec - Lagiewniki - Cracow

Morning visit to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the oldest working salt mine in Europe ! You will be transferred by elevator 120 metres below ground, seeing marvellous chapels and sculptures made out of salt throughout the Centuries. You will admire the underground world of salt lakes, galleries, stairs, altars and chambers all carved in salt by many generations of Polish miners, not artists. You will pass through 20 fascinating chambers. The Chapel of St. Kinga – a great chamber like a big church – with a splendid collection of sculptures and bas-reliefs makes this place terrific! Don’t forget to see the amazing carving of the Last Supper. Another important site and place in the history of Poland is the Benedictine Abbey of Tyniec, on the bank of the Vistula about 10km from the center of Cracow. The Benedictines were invited to settle there in 1044, and the building shows the repeated acts of destruction of the Tartars in 1242, the Swedes in 1672, and the Russians in 1771. The "work" of the Order was the Wieliczka Salt Mine and the education of young Polish noblemen. Proceed to Lagiewniki to visit the Shrine of Divine Mercy and St. Faustina’s Convent. There will be time to walk on the grounds and explore the life of the Blessed, now Saint Faustina “…whom Jesus chose to be his apostle of Mercy”.

D/O Cracow

Day 4  Cracow - Kalwaria Zebrzydowska - Wadowice - Cracow

After breakfast you will drive to the beautiful Shrine of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, set in the Beskidy Mountains and a long time place of pilgrimage. This has always been one of the Holy Father's very favorite of all places. His father worked here as a tour guide, and he brought the nine-year-old Karol Wojtyla here soon after his mother died. This was also the very last place Pope John Paul visited on his last visit to Poland, Fall of 2002. Then we will drive to Wadowice, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II. You will visit his Holiness’ family house, now a museum. where Karol Wojtyla spent his formative years and the parish church.

D/O Cracow

Day 5  Cracow - Oswiecim - Czestochowa - Cracow

Visit to former Concentration Camp Auschwitz – Birkenau. While there we have the opportunity to recall the lessons of history, and we can also remember all of the saints who passed that way, including Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe, cell was Block 11, Cell 18. Then we will drive to Czestochowa, visiting Jasna Gora monastery where you will have a conducted tour, mass, and other time to spend with the Black Madonna - Our Lady of Czestochowa, and learn her miraculous story. Did you know she has two gashes on her face which the monks left as reminders of the Hussite raid. Return to Cracow for dinner and overnight.

D/O Cracow

Day 6  Cracow

Breakfast as usually. Depends of dept. time - time for leisure, shopping.
Departure transfer to Cracow Airport.

End of the services.