We'll meet & greet you at the airport and transfer you to your hotel.
Welcome drink with your Tour Director & free time.

Overnight in Bratislava

Meal(s): buffet breakfast
Hotel : Hotel Park Inn (SF)

BRATISLAVA - CHATAM SOFER MEMORIAL - MUSEUM OF JEWISH CULTURE

Start the day with a professional guide specialized on Jewish culture where you visit the highlights of the city such as Primate Palace (the largest palace in Bratislava where the Treaty of Pressburg in 1805 was signed), St. Martin Cathedral (one of the largest gothic construction of Bratislava where between the years 1563-1830 the coronations of 19 rulers including Austria-Hungarian empress Maria Theresa took place), Michael's gate - the only preserved gate from medieval times, Slovak National Theatre, City Hall, historical narrow streets, squares and lots more. 

Visit a Jewish memorial, containing Chatam Sofer's grave and those of many of his associates and family located in Bratislava. Moshe Schreiber - Chatam Sofer was one of the leading Orthodox rabbis of European Jewry in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was a teacher to thousands and a powerful opponent to the Reform movement, which was then making inroads into many Jewish communities in Austria-Hungary and beyond. As Rav of the city of Pressburg (present-day Bratislava), he maintained a strong Orthodox Jewish perspective through communal life, first-class education, and uncompromising opposition to Reform and radical change. 
The Chatam Sofer established a yeshiva in Pressburg which became the most influential yeshiva in Central Europe, producing hundreds of future leaders of Hungarian Jewry. 

Lunch break. Visit the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava. It tells you the history and culture of Jews living in the territory of Slovakia since the times of the Great Moravian Empire. It shows the everyday life of the Jewish community, furnishing of synagogues, important Jews in Slovakia's History, as well as a section on the Holocaust. The tour ends with a visit of Synagogue... Free Program. 

dinner at the Jewish style Chez David Restaurant
Overnight in Bratislava

Meal(s): buffet breakfast
Hotel : Hotel Park Inn (SF)

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DAY 3

JEWISH HERITAGE IN SLOVAKIA - TRNAVA SYNAGOGUE

We'll drive to Trnava town (40min drive). City tour followed by visit of a synagogue. The synagogue as it stands was built in 1891 according to the plans of the Viennese architect Jakub Gartner. The building with a striking two-tower façade serves following its partial reconstruction for the needs of the Ján Koniarik Gallery. The exhibition of the Museum of Jewish Culture is installed in the women’s gallery. Following the end of the Second World War a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust was placed in front of the synagogue, built according to a design by the architect Artur Szalatnai-Slatinský. 

We'll continue to Nitra town (30min drive). City tour followed by visit of a synagogue. The Synagogue is a protected cultural site. Built in 1910 – 1911 following the project of L.Baumhorn, designer of many other monumental synagogues across the former Hungarian Kingdom. It is a quadrate structure with multistorey galleries. The frontage is richly decorated using Byzantine and other Oriental patterns. Across the street, Uránia Cinema once stood, utterly destroyed by 1945,  visit synagogue. 

Lunch break & transfer to Trencin town (1hr 20min drive). Free Program

Meal(s): buffet breakfast
Hotel : Tatra (SF)

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DAY 4

JEWISH HERITAGE IN SLOVAKIA - TRENCIN - LIPTOVSKY MIKULAS

 Start with a city tour & castle visit. The Trenčín synagogue belongs to the most exquisite and interesting works of its type in Slovakia. It was built close to an earlier synagogue. In 1913, a Trenčín construction firm, Fuchs and Niegreisz, based on the blueprints of a Berlin architect Dr. Richard Scheibner, carried out the construction. 

Transfer to Liptovsky Mikulas town (2hrs 30min drive), city tour and synagogue visit. Synagogue was built in 1842–46 and it assumed the present form after extensive reconstruction in 1906 under the project of architect Lipót Baumhorn from Budapest. The reconstruction resulted in an interesting combination of original classicistic exterior and lavishly decorated secession interior. It does not fulfil its original purposes anymore. Lunch break. 

Transfer to Bardejov (2hrs 30min drive). Free Program. 

Meal(s): buffet breakfast
Hotel : Bellevue (F)

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DAY 5

JEWISH HERITAGE IN SLOVAKIA - BARDEJOV - PRESOV

Start with a city tour - see the Highlights of this best-preserved medieval town such as Church of St. Egidius, City Hall, former fortification walls with bastions, executioner's house and lots more. Visit of Bikkur Cholim synagogue.  

Transfer to Presov town - Slovakia's 3rd biggest city - (45min drive). City tour around the beautiful main square with well preserved houses from 16th century. The dominant of the centre is Gothic Cathedral of St. Nicholas, next to Protestant college & Protestant church (17th century), synagogue in Presov is one of the best-preserved buildings of its kind in Slovakia, nowadays its a Museum of Jewish culture (you will visit it).
The Orthodox synagogue, built in 1898 by the building firm Kollacsek and Wirth, is a three-storey building without towers. The relatively austere neo-Roman-Moorish façades cover literally a treasure of synagogue architecture. The richly decorated interiors with a fully preserved inventory are among the most attractive Jewish memorials in Slovakia.
The building is still today used as a house of prayer. In the women’s gallery there is installed the Barkány collection of Judaica – an exhibition of the Museum of Jewish Culture. The synagogue is a component of a valuable complex of Jewish communal institutions (a house of prayer, a Jewish school, a rabbinate, a ritual slaughter house) which since the 1880’s the Orthodox community has built outside the city walls Lunch break & transfer to Kosice city (40min drive).

Optional : a full-day trip to Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration camp + 4hrs tour 

Overnight in Kosice

Meal(s): buffet breakfast
Hotel : Zlaty Dukat (SF)

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DAY 6

JEWISH HERITAGE IN SLOVAKIA - KOSICE

Start with a city tour. Kosice city - an important cultural, scientific and commercial centre of Slovakia. The favourable natural conditions here attracted the first settlers in the Stone Age. The first monasteries were established here in the 11th-13th centuries and Kosice growth was given a boost by the arrival of German settlers in the 13th century. 
The Golden Age (15th cent.) when Kosice was a centre for trade and crafts and one of the biggest towns in the whole Kingdom of Hungary..Kosice is now home to a number of universities, scientific institutions, theatres, philharmonic orchestra and a number of foreign and international companies, all of them giving this city a lively and cosmopolitan flavour.
Visit the main square and the Gothic St. Elisabeth Catedral (the biggest Gothic church in Slovakia), Jesuit church & monastery, Franciscan church & monastery, Miklus's prison - one of the best preserved structures from Middle Ages, Eastern Slovak Museums -15th-17th century gold coins from all over Europe..

The Orthodox Jews built a representative synagogue with 800 seats with a school and the Talmud Torah school haeded by rabbis. The designer of the synagogue was Ľudovít Oelschläger, a Christian architect, and it was built by Hugó Kaboš. Free Program. Transfer to Bratislava  (5hrs 20min drive). 
 
Overnight in Bratislava 

Meal(s): buffet breakfast
Hotel : Park Inn (SF)

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DAY 7

FAREWELL

Free Time until your departure. Transfer to the airport.

Accommodation details:

• breakfast is included and provided in the hotels restaurant
• possibility to check your accommodation on the official hotel websites
• price is based on 2 people sharing a room
• single supplement available with a surcharge
• rooms are equipped with a bathroom- shower or bath with WC, TV, radio

What is included in the price

• professional driver/guide, translator & advisor
• 6x accommodation in superior hotels
• 6x breakfast at the hotels
• all transfers around Slovakia
• airconditioned luxurious limousines or minivans/minibuses Mercedes Benz equipped with a fridge on board
• diesel, all parking & motorway fees
• map of Bratislava & map of Slovakia, information material (brochures, leaflets)
• entrance fee in the mentioned castles/churches/museums
• everybody gets a CD-ROM with Photos of Your Holiday

What is NOT included in the price

• flights to/from Slovakia
• transfer from/to airport (will be arranged)
• lunch, dinner
• drinks (alcoholic & non-alcoholic beverages)
• souvenirs, tips
• any other trips not mentioned in this itinerary

Price on request

Clothing required for this tour

• no need for special clothing