On arrival in Kraków, your transfer takes you from the airport to your hotel. Meet your Travel Director and fellow travelers over dinner at a local restaurant before heading into the Market Square. The Cloth Hall stands among gabled townhouses and Gothic spires as you move between Christmas stalls filled with handmade gifts. You run your fingers over soft Highland wool slippers, watch Baltic amber jewelry glow honey-gold beneath the stall lights and perhaps even try warm oscypek from the Tatra Mountains, its smoky saltiness cut by tart cranberries.
With your Local Specialist beside you, you climb Wawel Hill to the Renaissance castle and Kraków Cathedral, where Poland’s kings rest beneath centuries of stone. Back in the Old Town, you follow its historic streets before exploring Kraków at your own pace. Perhaps choose today’s Optional Experience to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, descending through galleries cut from rock salt as timber beams brace gray walls dusted with glittering salt deposits. In St Kinga’s Chapel, 101 meters underground, you catch sight of chandeliers strung with bright salt crystals, shimmering above a floor carved from a single mass of salt.
After traveling to Auschwitz, you'll head to Wrocław. Five rivers thread through the city, dividing it into 12 islands joined by more than 150 bridges. Water slips beneath the crossings, with church towers and old riverside buildings reflected in the Oder. In Rynek, you move beneath thousands of twinkling lights strung above rows of wooden stalls and the Baroque buildings of the historic square. Follow the warm perfume of spice and baked sweetness to a stall serving gingerbread made only with local ingredients and baked to traditional Lower Silesian recipes.
Crossing the Czech border, you’ll arrive in Prague and enter Malá Strana, where steep lanes and stairways wind past Baroque palaces beneath Prague Castle. Lamplight gleams on carved doorways and wrought-iron balconies as you move from one local restaurant to the next during a progressive Dine-Around dinner, with savory steam wafting from a bowl of traditional Czech soup before you taste slow-cooked goulash. Back outside, the old quarter’s narrow streets carry you towards the Christmas market, where warm spices and baked sweetness drift between the stalls.
For your choice experience, you decide how to explore Prague: cross the courtyards of Prague Castle and enter St Vitus Cathedral, where stained-glass color falls across chapels and carved stone, or join your Local Specialist in the Jewish Quarter to hear the history, traditions and legends of its Jewish community. In Old Town Square, Gothic spires stand beyond a giant Christmas tree glowing above rows of wooden stalls. You meet a local stallholder, cradle a glass of Svařák and sip the warming mulled wine alongside Trdelník, a spiral pastry baked until golden and rolled in cinnamon sugar.
Crossing into Germany, you'll arrive in Dresden, where the pale dome of the Frauenkirche crowns Neumarkt, rebuilt after wartime destruction. With your Local Specialist, you move alongside the Procession of the Dukes, its mounted rulers stretching across a sweep of porcelain tiles, before wandering through the Zwinger’s arcaded courtyards towards the pale Baroque Dresden Cathedral and the richly sculpted Semper Opera House. In your free time, you may pause for Christstollen, a Christmas cake with medieval roots, fragrant with butter, candied citrus and almonds beneath a veil of icing sugar, or choose a traditional wooden Christmas pyramid before continuing to Berlin.
With your Local Specialist, you'll pass beneath the sandstone columns of the Brandenburg Gate and follow Unter den Linden past the State Opera House. You pause beside the weathered concrete remnants of the Berlin Wall, then look across the restored Reichstag as daylight glances off its glass dome and the Berlin sky mirrors across its curved surface. Later, perhaps browse the Weihnachtszauber at Gendarmenmarkt between the twin domed towers and the Konzerthaus, stopping at stalls of fine crafts as performers fill the square with music and aromas of festive dishes spill from heated tents. Then, join your fellow travelers for dinner at a local restaurant.
After breakfast, say goodbye to Berlin as your departure transfer takes you to the airport.
