Poland

Depart on an overnight flight to Warsaw, Poland.

Arrive in Warsaw and meet our Faith Journeys Tour Manager and transfer to the hotel. Panoramic driving tour of Warsaw. Celebrate Mass. Check-in to the hotel for dinner and overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel. Half-day city tour of Warsaw including the church of St. Stanislaw Kostka. Also see the Royal Castle, visit St. John’s Cathedral, and Old Town Market Place. Celebrate Mass. Lunch, on own. Continue with the New Town Market, Barbican, and Krasinski Square. Drive out to the Ghetto Memorial with views of the Tomb of the Unknown Solder and Warsaw’s Grand Opera and National Theatre House. Also visit the Church of the Holy Cross and Royal Lazienki Park. Dinner at a local restaurant. Return to the hotel for overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel, followed by check-out. Visit one of the most important places of pilgrimage in Poland, the village of Niepokalanow, home to the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a Conventual Franciscan Friary founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe. Celebrate Mass. Lunch, on own. Continue to Czestochowa, and visit the famous Pauline monastery of Jazna Góra and Poland’s holiest relic, the Black Madonna painting. Check-in to the hotel for dinner and overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel, followed by check-out. Celebrate Mass.
Depart for Wadowice, the birthplace of St. John Paul II. Explore the museum in the family home of St. John Paul II, including a collection of objects that belonged to Karol Wojtyła and his family. Also see Virgin Mary’s Offertory, the parish church of the Karol Wojtyła family. Afternoon continue to Zakopane, “the winter capital of Poland.” Check-in to the hotel for dinner and overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel. Celebrate Mass. Visit the Sanctuary of the Holy Virgin of Fatima. Take a funicular up the Gubałówka mountain for a view of Zakopane and the Tatras. Continue to Villa Atma and Wladyslaw Hasjor Art Gallery. Dinner at a local restaurant. Return to the hotel in Zakopane for overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel, followed by check-out. Visit the city of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, where young Wojtyła would come to pray and reflect upon his life and service to God. Find the famous Calvary paths, and intertwining mesh churches, chapels and wayside shrines originally built to replicate the city of Jerusalem. Celebrate Mass. Continue to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, one of the world’s oldest operating salt mines. At the end of the underground tour there is a large cathedral (the Church of St. Kinga). Continue to Krakow to check-in to the hotel for dinner and overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel. A morning tour of Krakow includes a visit to Kazimeirz, the Dominican Church, and Wawel Royal Castle, including Katedra Wawelska, the cathedral of Karol Wojtyła until he became Pope. Lunch, on own. Continue with Krakow’s Old Town, including the Main Market Square, Town Hall Tower, the Sukiennice, the Gothic Church of St. Stanislaw. Celebrate Mass. Return to the hotel for dinner and overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel. Morning excursion to Auschwitz to visit the museum at the site of the concentration camps Auschwitz I and II. More than 1.1 million people (90% of them Jews) died here during the German occupation of Poland during World War II. The tour will include seeing the cell of St. Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M. Conv., who gave his life in substitution for a prisoner who was to be executed. Celebrate Mass. Lunch, on own. Return to Krakow for an afternoon of leisure for self-arranged visits or time for reflection. Return to the hotel for dinner and overnight.

Breakfast at the hotel. Morning visit to the Convent of Sister of Mercy in nearby Lagiewniki, where Saint Faustina, the Apostle of Divine Mercy, lived and died. Celebrate Mass. Visit the nearby John Paul II Center to venerate a relic (a small vile of blood) of St. John Paul II. Return to Krakow. Enjoy a memorable farewell dinner at a local restaurant to contemplate and share all that we have felt on our pilgrimage of faith. Return to the hotel for overnight.