Welcome to Poland

Welcome to Poland, a destination with vibrant history whose geography has influenced its historical dilemmas. Arrive at Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW), where you will meet your driver in the Arrivals Hall after going through immigration, customs, and baggage claim.

Take a private transfer to your hotel to settle in.

This evening, you will meet with the Warsaw International Rotary Club to share about each of your projects, then continue your conversation over dinner together at a local restaurant.

Overnight: PURO Hotel Warszawa Centrum

Warsaw Old Town & Ghetto

Breakfast is available to enjoy at your leisure starting at 6:30 AM.

After breakfast, re-join the Warsaw International Rotary Club at a a Ukrainian school. Meet the teachers and pupils and learn about what the school is doing to support refugee students with their studies and mental health. Enjoy a Ukrainian style lunch with the group.

Then head out for a tour in Warsaw Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was almost entirely destroyed in WWII and has been rebuilt in a style inspired by classicist paintings of Italian artist Canaletto. Visit Lazienkowski Park and end your tour with a Chopin concert.

This evening after the concert, you may meet with local Rotarians for dinner in Warsaw.

Overnight: PURO Hotel Warszawa Centrum

Travel to Kraków

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and enjoy your final morning in Warsaw. With your local guide and a visit to either the Warsaw Uprising Museum or POLIN Jewish Museum, begin to unpack the horrors of the Nazi occupation, the devastating loss of lives, how Poland fared under Communism, and the rise of the Solidarity Movement which led Poland to become a member of NATO. Continue on to the Warsaw Ghetto, one of the largest Nazi ghettos during the war.

Enjoy lunch either in Warsaw or during the drive to your next destination, Kraków (about 4.5 hours driving). Once you arrive in Kraków, check in to your hotel and enjoy dinner on your own this evening.

Overnight: Hotel Stary

Kraków Sightseeing

Enjoy breakfast at your hotel, followed by a day of sightseeing in Kraków. Known as the cultural capital of Poland, Kraków has grown from a Stone Age settlement first built in the 7th century that was then spared from major destruction during the war.

Your private walking tour of the city will center in Old Town, where you will also eat lunch. The tour may include stops at St. Mary’s Church and Wawel Royal Castle, a centerpiece of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture.

This evening, enjoy dinner with a briefing by a Polish historian. Dinner will be arranged in Old Town.

Overnight: Hotel Stary

Auschwitz-Birkenau

After breakfast, travel to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum to visit the concentration camp memorial.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest concentration camp in the Third Reich. Historical investigation shows that over 1.1 million people, predominantly Jewish, were systematically starved, tortured, and murdered in this camp. Today, the site has been preserved as a museum to honor lost lives and educate its visitors.

Have lunch after your tour, and there may be a Rotary project visit in Kraków upon your return this afternoon.

Dinner for this evening will be on your own in Kraków.

Overnight: Hotel Stary

Kraków Jewish District & Museums

After breakfast, take a private tour of Kraków’s Jewish District, with visits to the Schindler Museum and Remah Synagogue.

Enjoy lunch in Kazimierz, one of Kraków’s most exciting districts with a bustling, bohemian neighborhood packed with historical sites, atmospheric cafés, and art galleries. If desired, you may visit a vodka tasting room in a hidden bar.

This afternoon and evening, enjoy free time to explore more of Kraków on your own or rest at the hotel. You may choose to walk along Kraków’s Royal Way, the Barbican, the City Walls, Florinska Street, or take time to shop in the Market Square. You may also use your guide as a resource to plan your evening.

Overnight: Hotel Stary

Wieliczka Salt Mine

After breakfast, today may include a continued conversation on Poland’s support for Ukraine and Rotary’s support for Ukrainian refugees. Afterwards, you will have a group lunch before continuing on to this afternoon’s visits.

Then travel just outside the city to visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine, a historical monument with shafts and labyrinthine passageways, displays of salt-mining technology, an underground lake, four chapels, and statues made of rock salt.

Return to Kraków and enjoy a final dinner in Poland.

Overnight: Hotel Stary

Travel to Romania

After breakfast this morning, check out of your hotel and transfer back to Warsaw for your flight to Bucharest (OTP).

Flight Number: Polish Airlines LO 645 (Warsaw to Bucharest)
Departure Time: 2:35pm;  Arrival Time: 5:30 pm

Upon arriving in Bucharest, enjoy a private transfer to your downtown hotel. Along the drive, there will be an opportunity to check out the Palace of the Parliament. Romania’s capital city of Bucharest is known for its architectural diversity, as Art Deco buildings like the Telephone Palace rub shoulders with richly decorated Art Nouveau homes. During your stay here, you may visit such sites as the Palace of the Parliament, one of the largest and heaviest buildings in the world, and a symbol of Romania’s Neoclassical and Communist pasts.

After dinner tonight, rest and relax at your hotel as you settle into beautiful Romania.

Overnight: Novotel

Bucharest Meetings & Sightseeing

Today there will be opportunities to meet with local Rotary groups, including the Bucuresti Club Excelsior.

If time allows, visit the Ferestroika Interactive Museum of Communism. A play on the Romanian word fereastra (meaning “window”) and Perestroika (coined in the USSR in the 80s), Ferestroika is a window into the lifestyle, diet and stories of a Communist-era family. This private home-turned-museum offers visitors a unique interactive experience of the bleak 1980s period.

This evening, enjoy dinner at a traditional Romanian restaurant.

Overnight: Novotel

Travel to Transylvania

Enjoy breakfast and check out from the hotel to set out for a scenic 2-hour drive through the Carpathian Mountains to Transylvania. The drive is about three hours. To break up the journey, you’ll stop along the way, tentatively visiting Peles Castle, a 19th century Neo-Renaissance masterpiece known for its fairytale turrets; Sinaia, a 19th century royal resort nestled in a valley; or Becegi National Park, featuring a natural sphinx-shaped rock formation.

Along the way, you will have lunch at La Tunuri, the former Royal Guard Office of Peles Castle.

After lunch, drive to Bran Castle (about 1.5 hours) , built by Saxons in 1377 and known as Dracula’s Castle. The castle is an astonishing place to visit, fully equipped with towers, turrets, medieval costumes, jewelry and weapons, a chamber of horrors, and a magnificent view of the Carpathian Mountains.

Then continue the drive to your final destination, the medieval Transylvanian city of Brasov.

Upon arrival in Brasov, check in to your hotel before walking to Old Town for dinner.

Overnight: Schuster Boarding House

Saxon Towns of Transylvania

Enjoy a leisurely breakfast before heading out for a walking tour of Brasov, which will lead you around this medieval town through the lens of the Pied Piper legend. Tour highlights include Romania’s largest Gothic church, the local history museum, and Rope Street, the narrowest street in all of Eastern Europe.

Around midday, drive about one hour to the neighboring town of Viscri (UNESCO World Heritage site), a home to Saxons, Romanians, and Roma gypsies. You will have lunch at a beautiful local family restaurant.

In the afternoon, drive about 45 minutes to the town of Sighisoara, known for its pastel-colored 12th century homes and as the birthplace of Dracula. Explore the town through a walking tour that may take you to such whimsical stops as a clock tower or gallery of wooden spoons. This may feel like a quaint, hillside town from a storybook, but your guide will remind you that its towers were once bristling with weapons to protect the town from Turkish raids.

There will be an opportunity to meet with a local Rotary group in Sighisoara and visit their projects.

Gather in the evening for a group dinner.

Overnight: Hotel Central Park

Travel to Cluj-Napoca

After breakfast this morning, drive about three hours to your final destination and largest city in Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca.

Today there may be an opportunity to have a meeting with the local Rotary club of Cluj.

Lunch today is on your own, and you will have time for independent sightseeing in this charming filled with bohemian cafes and a pulsating nightlife. Check into your hotel.

Have an afternoon at your leisure and then enjoy one final dinner as a group at a local restaurant.

Overnight: Radisson Blu Hotel, Cluj

Departures

Have one final breakfast in Romania and, if time allows, explore the 18th century Gothic architecture and artistic community of Cluj before taking your private transfer to Cluj “Avram Iancu” International Airport (CLJ) for your departure flight.

For more information about this incredible journey to Poland and Romania with Rotary WeCARe, be sure to visit the following pages:

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