Overview & Itinerary
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Accommodation
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Highlight
Monday 7 July – arrival to Krakow
Arrival to Krakow Airport – flight details to be advised.
We will meet with our local guide and transfer to the hotel to check in – if time allows, we will have a short orientation tour of the centre of Krakow.
Tuesday 8 July – Tour of Krakow - Wadowice
Transfer by coach to visit Auschwitz.
Departure towards Auschwitz Birkenau museum
Visit of the museum with English speaking guide
Auschwitz-Birkenau – Museum of Martyrdom. Witness here one of the most memorable lessons of modern European history. The visit includes a film showing the camp’s liberation and you’ll see the flower strewn Death Wall, the national memorials, the rail line, ramp and remains of the hundreds of barracks, a moving testimony to the number of lost lives through Nazi activities across occupied Europe.
Visit cells for certain prisoners as well as the cell which housed Maximilian Kolbe who later was canonized a saint by Pope John Paul II. Kolbe was a Franciscan monk and the founder of the monastery in Niepokalanów. During WWII, as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp, he saved the life of another prisoner.
Afternoon Visit to Wadowice
We will transfer by coach to Wadowice. The town of Wadowice is the birthplace of Karol Wojtyla. Here we shall visit the museum, dedicated to the life of the Pope John Paul II and other places closely linked to his presence in this area, including the Basilica of the Offering of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the ornate church where Karol Wojtyła was baptized and confirmed.
Wednesday 9 July – Krakow – Czestochowa – Krakow
We depart by coach to Czestochowa where we will have a Sightseeing of Jasna Gora Monastery with local English speaking guide.
Czestochowa
Jasna Gora, a place of pilgrimage for thousands every year, is the most important Marian shrine in Poland. The focal point is the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin with its miraculous icon – the Black Madonna, but the museum with its Treasury and the Arsenal are also well worth a visit.
Thursday 10 July – Kraków-Łagiewniki – Wieliczka-Krakow
After breakfast we will depart by coach to visit the new Basilica of the Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki that seats 4000 people and was consecrated by Holy Father in 2002. The central focus of the shrine is the tomb of St Faustina and the miraculous image of Our Merciful Lord.
Mass in the Chapel celebrated Priest. After the mass one of Divine Mercy Sisters will have a lecture for the group regarding the history of Convent and St Faustina Kowalska.
You will be given time to pray in the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy where St Faustina lived for the last years of her life and where she received some of the apparitions of Merciful Christ.
Return to Krakow for a guided tour of the City Centre.
Friday 11 July – Krakow- departure
We will depart by coach to visit Wieliczka Salt Mine
This unique phenomenon was once described as being ‘as remarkable as the Pyramids and more useful’! Over nine levels, you can visit Rooms, passages, great chambers, underground lakes of remarkable colours and chapels with superb statues – all carved from salt. Today this is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage monument and one of the most renowned attractions in the Krakow area.
You can visit the famous Chapel of St. Kinga.
St. Kinga lived in the 13th century, she was a Hungarian princess. The legend says that after marrying a Polish prince, the only present that she wanted to receive was salt.
The king of Hungary gave her his richest mine, and Kinga dropped her engagement ring into its shaft. After coming to Kraków, the contemporary capital of Poland, the engagement ring was re-discovered in Wieliczka, in the first clump of salt that was extracted from there. This was the beginning of the miraculous history of the Wieliczka salt mine. St. Kinga, beatified by Pope Alexander VIII in 1690 and canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1999, is still the patron saint of the Wieliczka salt mine.
Transfer on to Airport for return flight to the UK
