Highlights of Bohemia

Your tour begins in Berlin, where cafe chatter, tram bells and the smoky-sweet scent of currywurst from a street-food stall fill the air. You have time to head out on your own to explore Germany's capital, perhaps pausing for a cold stein of local beer or a soft salty pretzel fresh from the baker's oven. Later, you'll meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers, the people who will share the route with you through Poland, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic.

You'll start the day on Unter den Linden, Berlin’s grand boulevard with your Local Specialist. You may catch glimmers of light on the Reichstag’s glass dome, hear leaves rustle along Tiergarten’s long, tree-lined paths or stop and gaze up at the Quadriga above Brandenburg Gate. The afternoon is yours to explore independently or you may join an Optional Experience. You can choose to examine World War II and Cold War sites or follow the path of the Berlin Wall through East Berlin with neighbourhood food stops along the way. Or you can leave the city for a countryside dinner, where you'll take your seat among warm dishes to enjoy some German specialities.

From Berlin, you'll cross into Poland and arrive in Poznań for an orientation through the Old Town’s merchant houses, square-fronted streets and Renaissance Ratusz. In your free time, you can take a seat on a restaurant terrace with a warm coffee, or look up to the Town Hall tower where the city’s famous goats keep watch above the square. Later, Warsaw opens out in wide avenues, rebuilt streets, market hall chatter and the narrow paths once used in secret. You can explore at your pace or choose an Optional Experience, following the city’s wartime history from the former ghetto bridge to hidden escape routes and market halls.

This morning, you walk through Warsaw’s Old Town, standing before St John’s Cathedral, the Royal Palace and the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, moving between carved stone, church doors and places of remembrance. At Wilanów Palace, you can choose an Optional Experience with a Local Specialist through King Jan III Sobieski’s Baroque residence, walking past gilded interiors before tracing the clipped curls of the gardens, where green hedges cut patterns through white gravel. In the afternoon, you can explore independently or choose an Optional Experience through Praga, where you enter the Polish Vodka Museum inside the former Koneser vodka factory. Light glints across glass shelves and rows of bottles filled with strong, clear vodka. Perhaps you might choose a bottle of Polish vodka for yourself and feel its clean heat on your tongue. This evening, you can choose an Optional Experience: a Chopin piano recital, where you can take your seat in a beautiful historic setting and listen as the quick notes and deep chords fill the room.

Travelling south towards Kraków, Poland’s former royal capital, you will visit the memorial site of the former concentration camp at Auschwitz. Here, you can take time to remember and honour the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

Near Kraków, you can begin underground with an Optional Experience to the UNESCO-listed Wieliczka Salt Mines. You descend into cool mineral air as light glistens off salt-crusted walls and jagged white salt icicles overhead, hanging like crystal shards against the rock. Back above ground, you follow your Local Specialist along the city’s medieval walls towards Wawel Castle, hearing the tale of the dragon said to have lived beneath the hill in the Dragon’s Den. The rest of the day is yours in the UNESCO-listed Old Town. You can cross Rynek Główny, slip beneath the Cloth Hall arcades or pick up an obwarzanek from a street cart, its braided crust lightly crumbling beneath your fingers. This evening, you can choose an Optional Experience: a farmhouse dinner and Polka party, where you enjoy Polish specialities before you clap along or take a turn following the quick Polka steps across the dance floor.

Travelling south, you leave Poland for Slovakia’s pastoral heart, watching fields, village roofs and low hills pass beyond the window as the road runs towards Hungary. In Budapest, Buda rises on one side of the Danube and Pest stretches along the other, with Magyar, German, Slav, Jewish, Roma and Turkish influences layered into the city’s food, streets and riverfront. This evening, you can choose an Optional Experience of a cruise along the Danube by boat. Cool river air brushes your skin as you lift your fork to Hungarian specialities. You sail beneath the Chain Bridge and watch Parliament’s illuminated arches glow across the water.

With your Local Specialist in Budapest, you'll explore the city’s 1000-year history through old legends and the Castle District, crossing Buda’s hill between towers, tiled roofs and old gates. Afterwards, you can explore independently, perhaps climbing towards the dome of St. Stephen’s Basilica, browsing the Great Market Hall beneath its ironwork roof or letting thermal water warm your shoulders at one of Budapest’s baths. On an Optional Experience to Szentendre, you catch the hearty smell of onion and garlic drifting through the air during a goulash cooking demonstration before moving through lanes lined with Baroque houses, church towers and gallery windows.

At the Hungarian Parliament, you can choose an Optional Experience inside one of Budapest’s grandest buildings. You'll climb the Grand Stairway, where deep red carpet stretches between gold balustrades while rows of lit chandeliers glow overhead. Leaving Budapest, you travel across Transdanubia, where hills and fields rise and fall in green folds towards Győr, midway between Budapest and Vienna. There, you can walk towards the bridges near Radó Island and listen to the water lapping softly against the banks below. Later, you'll cross the Austrian border and arrive in Vienna, where the Ringstrasse curves past palaces, parks and historic buildings. You might hear harnesses jingle at the Fiaker carriage stands as horses prepare to trot down the street or take in some of the city’s immense stone façades and ironwork.

You might choose an Optional Experience to Schönbrunn Palace, the former summer residence of the Habsburgs. Here, you can move through long gilded halls lit by glistening chandeliers hanging beneath intricately painted ceilings. Outside, you may follow the curling patterns of red, white and pink flowers across the wide green lawns. At a marble-topped table in a traditional Viennese coffee house, you might press your fork through the glossy chocolate glaze of a slice of Sachertorte as a cup of freshly brewed coffee steams beside you. With your Local Specialist, you pass the Parliament, Vienna Opera House, the Hofburg and City Hall, moving between columns, palace gates and Gothic towers. You can choose an Optional Experience: dinner with traditional music, where you take your seat as warm dishes arrive and melodies rise between the tables.

Travelling north from Vienna, you cross into the Czech Republic through South Moravia, where you pass vineyards and open fields on the way to Brno. In the medieval centre, you follow the streets towards the twin towers of the Cathedral of St Peter and Paul, catching the sound of bells carrying over the rooftops. Later, you arrive in Prague for an evening introduction, walking beneath spires and bridge towers as lamps glow along the Vltava.

With your Local Specialist, you'll explore Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral and Old Town Square, moving from castle courtyards to coloured glass, carved Gothic detail and the painted dial of the medieval Astronomical Clock. Afterwards, the afternoon is free for you to explore more of Prague on your own. You might cross Charles Bridge to examine its rows of statues or to look out across the city, its reflection rippling in the water below. You could then climb the Old Town Bridge Tower or simply wander down the old lanes past carved signs and painted doors in search of handmade souvenirs and keepsakes. Alternatively, choose an Optional Experience: a lunch cruise along the Vltava. On board, you'll sit down to lunch, feel the boat’s soft movement on the water and listen to local legends while quays, rooftops and castle slopes drift by you along the river.

Your tour ends in Prague, where you say goodbye to your Travel Director and fellow travellers after 13 days crossing Central Europe together. You head home with names, places and shared moments still fresh, from Berlin to the Czech capital.