Krakow Tours in October 2027

An amazing tour with great experiential visits to the cities. Can’t pick out one favorite but here’s a few: cooking class in Prague, kleezmeer restaurant and dance, visit to and guided tour of Benedictine monastery and so many more.

Varied opportunities from waltz class to spa experience to symphony and historical sights, the Hapsburg dynasty, the Ottoman influence, and remnants from WWII and the Holocaust. Particularly, I was most impressed with our tour manager Pavel. Not only ws he fluent in the needed languages but he was also of lover of history and quite knowledgeable. Collette should work to keep him as he prefers to work free lance.

Nice trip with a good bunch of fellow travellers. Explore leader was friendly, if not exactly well-organised. eg It took 3 days for us all to be included on the whatsapp group for the trip. The Krakow hotel was a little too far out town to be convenient. From Krakow, I'd organised a trip to Auschwitz with Discover Cracow, as suggested by Explore. The night before, they informed me that the pickup time of 6am had been forwarded to 3:30am! I cancelled. I would have arrived at 5am, waited for the place to open at 7:30, and queue for tickets for 9am or 10am entrance. This apparently has happened before, when they've over-booked.... Beware!

Excellent itinerary, varied and well thought out. Superb local guides in the mountains and Kraków (very informative and supportive). Unfortunately, the same could not be said about our Explore leader. She got lost in Kraków on the first night and we had to direct her. On the second day, she couldn't find the correct bus and tram. Great hiking,but inevitably on the first day the group became spread out and understandably she stayed with the slow group. The rest of us were sent inaccurate details to find our meeting point, about 3 hours away, luckily we all found it. She did not give us details of the length/ timings of ascents and descents which is vital for our motivation. On the last hike we were given some information, but we were still left on our own to negotiate some quite tricky paths. The slow group went on a different route. It was lucky that most of us were experienced walkers and could use our phones. Our leader didn't connect with us as a group or individually, she gave no information about Polish history or culture. This was our first walking trip with Explore and so we were extremely disappointed with the lack of leadership and guidance from our Explore leader.

Best tour was Wroclaw. Krakow Jewish quarter, old town tour could be expanded, Wawel castle element of the tour perhaps too detailed. Right balance between guided tour, own time, overall. Best hotel for quality, food, service was Hyatt in Krakow, but it’s some distance from the town centre so wouldn’t recommend. We went to Gdansk independently ahead of tour - really great place, and maybe replace Warsaw on tour if logistics allow. We travelled independently in Poland for a week after the tour. It’s very easy, safe there, with most people speaking English. The Explore tour is best suited to those who are a little unsure of themselves overseas, or don’t want the hassle of booking everything. We liked Monika, the tour guide.

A full and fascinating week. An overview of three Polish cities Although our leader was very nice she lacked experience and knowledge which over the week became more apparent. The itinerary mentioned a guided walk around the Jewish Quarter in Krakow. There was a short walk but could have been better