Rabbi John Franken
Bolton Street Synagogue
The Heart of Ashkenazic Europe
Central and Eastern Europe Tour
March 25 - April 8, 2017


Tour Rates & Dates:

There are no Departure Dates available for this Package.
*Please note that all rates displayed are based on standard room double occupancy.
All rates above are in US Dollars, and are based on full payment by credit card unless otherwise noted.
If check payment discount is available for this tour, it can be selected after clicking "BOOK" above.
(Deposit can still be paid by credit card).
Upgraded room categories may be available to book later in the booking process.
If Land & Air price is displayed, the air portion includes tax and fuel surcharges, which are subject to change until ticketed.

Tour Overview:

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This Amazing Tour Includes:

1 night Sheraton Carlton Hotel, Nuremberg, Germany
2 nights Kings Court Prague Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic
3 nights Sheraton, Krakow, Poland
3 nights Le Royal Meridien Bristol, Warsaw, Poland
4 nights The Westin Grand, Berlin, Germany
All touring and sightseeing per an agreed upon itinerary in a deluxe
air-conditioned vehicle with an English speaking guide
Train from Krakow to Warsaw
Breakfast daily
Welcome dinner in Fuerth
Dinner in Krakow
Dinner in Kazimierz with Klezmer performance
Wieliczka Salt Mines tour
Dinner at a local restaurant in Krakow near the Salt Mines
Shabbat dinner at Galicia Museum with Rabbi Tanya Segal
(pending availability)
Pierogi lunch in Warsaw
Chopin Concert
Dinner & hospitality at Congregation Ec Chajim
Meeting with Rabbi Walter Homolka
Shabbat farewell dinner
Transfers included if arriving/departing with the main group
Entrance fees as per itinerary
Porterage

These prices do not include:

Roundtrip airfare & departure taxes and fuel surcharges
(listed separately)
Any border taxes or visas
Tips to guides, driver, and dining room waiters
($15.00 per person, per day-pre-collected)
Any items of a personal nature
Travel Insurance
(Highly recommended)


Tour Itinerary:

DAY 1, Saturday, March 25, 2017: DEPARTURE

• We depart the United States on our overnight flight to Germany.

DAY 2, Sunday, March 26, 2017: ARRIVAL IN NUREMBERG

• Arrival in Nuremberg, an energetic city with a visible history of almost one thousand years.
• We travel to Fuerth, a city in Bavaria, Germany in the region of Franconia. We visit the Jewish Museum of Franconia. The museum in Fuerth - which was founded in 1997 - is dedicated to the history and culture of the Jews in Fuerth and Franconia and to the present and future life of the Jewish community.
• We transfer to our hotel and check in.
• Welcome dinner at our hotel.

O/N Fuerth

DAY 3, Monday, March 27, 2017: PRAGUE

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Today we travel to Prague (approx. 3 hours), the Czech capital, also known as "the City of One Thousand Spires" with its Baroque churches, promenades, parks and ancient city walls.
• We transfer to our hotel and check in.
• We enjoy an afternoon tour of Golden Prague, including the 1,000-year-old Hradcany Castle, the largest ancient castle in the world, the Charles Bridge, the Astronomical Clock and St. Vitus Cathedral, the biggest and most important church in the Czech Republic.

O/N Prague


DAY 4, Tuesday, March 28, 2017: PRAGUE

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Today we enjoy a sightseeing tour of Jewish interest sites, with a visit to the Old City to view the Josefov, Prague's Jewish Town with its Old Town Hall, the Alt-Neu Synagogue, the longest continually-used synagogue in Europe and the site of the first Magen David. We continue to the Pinkas Synagogue, the Maisel Synagogue, named after a Jewish Mayor of Prague, exemplifying the Golden Age of Jewish Prague, the Jewish Cemetery and the State Jewish Museum.
• We will also see the Spanish Synagogue, site of the first Reform synagogue in Prague.

O/N Prague

DAY 5, Wednesday, March 29, 2017: TO KRAKOW

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• This morning we depart for Krakow, driving through the lovely hills and countryside of Slovakia, past the Tatras and into the Great Plains of Poland (approx. 4 hrs).
• This morning, our City walking tour includes Wawel Castle, St. Mary's Church, the Renaissance Cloth Hall and other historic landmarks.
• Continue to our hotel for check in.
• This evening we enjoy a special dinner in Kazimierez, Krakow's former Jewish center, including Klezmer music!

O/N Krakow

DAY 6, Thursday, March 30, 2017: KRAKOW

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Our Jewish Heritage tour includes the Old Jewish District, Kazimierez, where we visit the Old Synagogue (a massive fortress-like building erected in the 15th and 16th Centuries), view the "Temple" and visit the Remuh Synagogue.
• We continue to the Little Museum at the Drug Store inside the Jewish Ghetto, and Schindler's Factory.
• We stop outside the Plaszow Concentration Camp where Jews lived and worked and the famous story of “Schindler” took place. The area which held the camp now consists of sparsely wooded hills and fields with one large memorial marking where the camp once stood. There is an additional small plaque of the Jewish community located nearby.
• This afternoon, we tour the UNESCO World Heritage Wieliczka Salt Mines. The Wieliczka Salt Mines are over 700 years old. It is one of the largest and oldest working salt mines in Europe. It is on the UNESCO list of the 12 most priceless monuments of the world. An elevator will descend to the first level of the mine where we will be able to see the 180 foot chapel made out of salt rock and lit with salt-crystal chandeliers. There are many other chambers carved out of a huge block of salt, underground museums and even tennis and volleyball courts.
• Dinner together this evening at a local restaurant near the Salt Mines.
• Return to Krakow.

O/N Krakow

DAY 7, Friday, March 31, 2017: AUSCHWITZ

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• We stop at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous Nazi concentration camp where mothers of Jews and others perished in WWII. Here we see the museum and pay tribute to the victims.
• Return to our hotel with time to refresh.
• We join Rabbi Tanya Segal (subject to availability and change) and members of Beit Krakow for Shabbat services and a fabulous Shabbat dinner together at the Galicia Museum.

O/N Krakow

DAY 8, Saturday, April 1, 2017: OLD TOWN WARSAW

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• We travel by train to Warsaw.
• We arrive in Warsaw and begin our sightseeing tour. We walk through the completely reconstructed Old Town. The Old Market Square was leveled and rebuilt brick by brick. We view the Mermaid statue, the legendary protectress of Old Market Square and walk by the Royal Castle. We'll stop for a traditional pierogi lunch along the way.
• We continue with a visit to the Warsaw Uprising Museum. Occupying a former tram power station the space is split over several levels, leading visitors through the chronological story of the Uprising. Different halls focus on the many aspects of the Uprising; walk through a replica radio station, or a covert printing press.
• This evening, we enjoy a special Chopin concert in a beautiful setting.
• The rest of the evening is yours to discover all the vibrant capital of Poland has to offer.

O/N Warsaw

DAY 9, Sunday, April 2, 2017: WARSAW

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• We spend the entire morning at the newly constructed POLIN Museum (The Museum of the History of the Polish Jews), now opened on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The museum provides a unique learning environment with a wide range of media, documents and artifacts. We will see the amazing architecture in the main hall and hear from their excellent docents.
• We continue to Warsaw's Jewish cemetery, the largest in Europe. About 230,000 Jews are buried here. During the war, an estimated 45,000 people were interred in the so-called Ghetto Field.

O/N Warsaw

DAY 10, Monday, April 3, 2017: JEWISH WARSAW

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• We take a tour of the former Jewish areas of Warsaw, including Zamenhof Street, named for the inventor of the Esperanto language, and the remains of Nalewki Street, which once teemed with business life. We see the Ghetto Wall remains.
• We'll stop for an interesting view of Israeli writer & artist, Etgar Keret's fascinating house, the skinniest house in the world!
• Continue to the Jewish Resistance Bunker at Mila 18, where the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz, took his life. We see the Umschlagplatz, where transfers from the Ghetto took place, and pass by Janucz Korczak's famous Orphanage.
• Tonight we meet with members of Reform Congregation, Ec Chaim. We enjoy dinner and hospitality with Rabbi Stas Wojciechowicz, as we learn more about the Judaism alive in today's Poland.

O/N Warsaw

DAY 11, Tuesday, April 4, 2017: TO BERLIN

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Check out of hotel.
• Transfer to the airport for our flight to Berlin, Germany's capital, reunited in 1989 and home to German's largest Jewish community.
• We begin our tour of Berlin, Germany's capital, reunited in 1989, and home of Germany's largest Jewish community at Mitte, Berlin's historic center district.
• Enjoy a walking tour along Hamburgerstrasse to view the Residential Monument and Moses Mendelssohn's grave.
• We will stop and visit the Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue, as well as the interesting Museum at Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind.
• Next we go to Rosenstrasse Memorial, site of a significant peaceful protest by Aryan wives and relatives of Jewish Germans rounded up for deportation.

O/N Berlin

DAY 12, Wednesday, April 5, 2017: BERLIN

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Tour the beautiful Rykestrasse Synagogue, Germany's largest synagogue, reopened 70 years after being damaged severely during Kristallnacht.
• Continue with a visit to the Jewish Museum (building designed by Daniel Libeskind). This is not a Holocaust Museum - the permanent exhibition deals with the Jewish contribution to life in Germany since the 1st century.
• Enjoy a walking tour of the Old Jewish Quarter, revolving and changing.

O/N Berlin

DAY 13, Thursday, April 6, 2017: THE ROAD TO POTSDAM

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• Today we travel outside Berlin to visit Potsdam and see many important historical sites along the way. En route we cross the Glienicke Bridge, a famous exchange point for Soviet spies during the days of the Cold War.
• Visit Wannsee House, where a meeting to unveil the “Final Solution” was infamously held.
• Drive by the Palace of Sanssouci (brief photo stop) before lunch (on own) nearby.
• Enjoy a visit to Geiger College, the only rabbinic seminary in Germany since the Holocaust. We'll meet with Rabbi Walter Hamolka to hear about this impressive school.
• Return to Berlin where we stop at Gleis 17, the train platform where Berlin's Jews were sent to Polish concentration camps, starting in October 1941.

O/N Berlin

DAY 14, Friday, April 7, 2017: BERLIN

• Breakfast at our hotel.
• We begin with a stop at Checkpoint Charlie. We visit the amazing and terrifying Topography of Terror museum, built on the site of the former SS and Gestapo headquarters.
• See the East Side Gallery, featuring artwork painted on the Berlin Wall.
• Visit sites of Jewish importance, including the massive Berlin Holocaust Memorial, the Burning of the Book Memorial & more.
• Shabbat farewell dinner together this evening with members of the Berlin Jewish Community.

O/N Berlin

DAY 15, Saturday, April 8, 2017: DEPARTURE

• Breakfast at our hotel
• Transfer to the airport for our flight back to the United States landing later today.


THE MEMORIES LAST FOREVER!


*Itinerary subject to change