Ukraine Winter Tour

<strong>Monday 26th October – Krakow, Poland</strong>
<ul>
<li>Arrive at your own pace in Krakow, Poland’s second largest city. The city enjoys excellent flight connections across Europe and beyond, including from Istanbul and Abu Dhabi. Make your own way to our centrally located hotel. Pre-tour accommodation can be arranged upon request for an additional fee.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>A pre-tour meeting will be held at the lobby of our hotel at 6:00 pm to discuss the tour itinerary and to meet your fellow travellers and YPT guide.</span></li>
<li>We’ll head to Krakow’s old town for a traditional Polish meal, where you can try pierogi, delicious dumplings filled with meat or vegetables.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Explore the old town and appreciate St. Mary’s Basilica in the evening before heading to our local bar for welcome drinks.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Overnight stay in Krakow.</span></li>
</ul>
<strong>Tuesday 27th October – Krakow – Lviv, Ukraine</strong>
<ul>
<li>We’ll have an early start, checking out and meeting in the hotel lobby at 4:45 a.m. before heading to Kraków Główny, the city’s main train station, for our 5:14am train to Przemyśl, a city located at the border between Poland and Ukraine. We’ll arrive there at 8:10am. <em>Train schedule is subject to change.</em></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>In Przemyśl, we’ll have a quick bite before heading to our 9:49 train to Lviv. There’s no station change, just a short walk to the international platform followed by immigration procedures.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>We’ll arrive at Lviv Central Station at 12:40 p.m., an architectural landmark that played a crucial role during the early days of the Russian invasion as thousands of Ukrainians fled through its halls.  </span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>We’ll take the tram to our centrally located hotel, which is a great way to see the city and </span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>gives you the opportunity</span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”> to interact with the locals.</span></li>
</ul>
<span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Afternoon </span>
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>After lunch, we will meet our local guide and set off to understand how this UNESCO-listed city has changed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Our first stop will be the Mars Field, located beside the historical Lychakivskiy Cemetery. When the cemetery ran out of space, this neighbouring field became the resting place of Lviv’s fallen soldiers. </span></li>
<li>We’ll then visit different locations linked to the war, including the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, a former Jesuit church now serving as a spiritual centre for Ukraine’s military.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Dinner followed by a few drinks. You’ll have the opportunity to talk with the </span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>local</span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”> residents about their lives and the conflict.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Overnight stay in Lviv.</span></li>
</ul>
<strong>Wednesday 28th October – Lviv – Kyiv</strong>
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>After breakfast, we’ll meet our guide once again for a walking tour through the old town of Lviv. Founded in the 13th century and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lviv is a crossroads of cultures and empires, shaped by centuries of Polish, Austro-Hungarian, Jewish, and Armenian influence.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>We’ll then head to the train station for our 11:50am train to Kyiv.</span></li>
</ul>
<span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Afternoon</span>
<ul>
<li>We’ll have lunch on the train. The journey will be a good opportunity to chat with your YPT guide and ask any questions you may have about Ukraine.</li>
<li>We’ll arrive in Kyiv at 7:00 pm, the capital and cultural heart of Eastern Europe. Life here continues as normally as possible despite the ongoing conflict.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>We’ll head to the entrance and meet our local guides and drivers who will take us to our centrally located hotel.</span></li>
<li>At the station entrance, we’ll meet our local guides and drivers who will take us to our centrally located hotel. After check-in and a short time to freshen up, we’ll head out to explore the city centre – time permitting.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Visit various contemporary relics of the war, such as abandoned tanks, and</span> <span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>bombed parts of the city centre. </span></li>
<li>For dinner, we’ll head to an iconic Kyiv bar that has remained open throughout the war and is owned by our local host. We’ll dine here and have the chance to hear first-hand stories about life in Kyiv today.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Overnight stay in Kyiv.</span></li>
</ul>
<strong>Thursday 29th October – Kyiv</strong>
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Breakfast at our hotel.</span></li>
<li>At 9:30 am, we will take the metro to Lukianivska Station, located in the Shevchenkivskyi District, one of Kyiv’s central areas repeatedly targeted since the start of the full-scale invasion.</li>
<li>From Lukianivska, we will continue to Pochaina to explore the vast local flea and book market, where traders sell everything from Soviet memorabilia and war badges to used books and household items.</li>
<li>Around midday, we will leave the capital and head northwest towards Irpin and Bucha, towns that became central to the battle for Kyiv in February and March 2022.</li>
</ul>
Afternoon
<ul>
<li>Our first stop will be the Romaniv Bridge, a vital crossing over the Irpin River. On 25 February 2022, one day after the invasion began, Ukrainian forces blew up the bridge to block the Russian advance toward Kyiv. Beneath the bridge, a makeshift evacuation route -known as the “Road of Life”- was later established and used by thousands of civilians fleeing shelling and fighting.</li>
<li>Along the Irpin River, we will see the trenches hastily dug during those early battles, still visible today. Nearby stands a striking art installation made from burnt-out cars recovered from the bridge area.</li>
<li>We will continue to the Irpin Palace of Culture, built in 1954 as the town’s main community centre. The building was struck and largely destroyed by Russian artillery on 17 March 2022, yet its ruins remain partially preserved as a symbol of Irpin’s cultural resilience.</li>
<li>On the road between Irpin and Bucha, we will pass the location of the now-famous photograph showing a destroyed Russian tank column, one of the defining images of the early invasion. Around us, signs of reconstruction will mingle with traces of loss: modular homes still shelter families who lost everything, while new buildings rise nearby.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>In Bucha, w</span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>e’ll visit the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints where the names of the victims are displayed on the memorial.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Back in Kyiv, we’ll have dinner at a local restaurant in the Old Town, followed by drinks and stories from the conflicts.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Overnight stay in Kyiv. </span></li>
</ul>
<strong>Friday 30th October – Kyiv</strong>
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>After breakfast, we will begin the day stepping out of our hotel right on Maidan Square, the symbolic heart of Kyiv and a focal point of Ukraine’s recent history, known for the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity.</span></li>
<li>We will explore the neighbourhood marked by monumental Soviet-era architecture, rebuilt in a distinctive Stalinist style after the city was heavily damaged during the Second World War.</li>
<li>We will take the metro to Arsenalna Station, the deepest metro station in the world at 105.5 metres below ground. Built in 1960, it also functions as a bomb shelter.</li>
<li>From there, we will walk through the Park of Eternal Glory, where an obelisk honours Soviet soldiers who fell during the Second World War. Nearby, we will also see the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, dedicated to the victims of the 1932–1933 famine caused by Stalin’s policies, which claimed millions of Ukrainian lives.</li>
<li>A short walk will bring us to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of Ukraine’s most important Orthodox Christian monasteries, founded in 1051. We will see the main gate and upper monastery complex. Since the invasion, parts of the Lavra have transferred from the Moscow Patriarchate to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.</li>
<li>Close to the monastery, we will view a display of destroyed tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and civilian vehicles donated to the Ukrainian army by volunteers.</li>
<li>Nearby, we will see the highest flag in Ukraine, standing beside the Motherland Monument, which we will visit.</li>
</ul>
Afternoon
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>For lunch, we’ll head to Puzata Hata, a popular Ukrainian cafeteria chain serving traditional dishes such as borscht, varenyky, deruny, and chicken Kyiv.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>In the afternoon, we will take a long walk through central Kyiv, passing: The Opera and Ballet Theatre (built in 1901); The Golden Gate, a reconstructed medieval city entrance; Saint Sophia Square, home to the Saint Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site from the 11th century; and St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, originally built in the 12th century, destroyed by the Soviets in the 1930s, and rebuilt after independence in 1991.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>In front of St Michael’s, there is an outdoor display of destroyed Russian military equipment, serving as an informal memorial to the ongoing war.</span></li>
<li>Our walk will end at the Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People, formerly known as the Arch of Friendship of Nations.</li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>After dinner, we’ll head to the central station and board our 9:00pm overnight sleeper train to Przemyśl.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Overnight on the sleeper train. </span></li>
</ul>
<strong>Saturday 31st October – Lviv – Krakow, Poland</strong>
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>We’ll arrive in Przemyśl around 6:29am, and head to the immigration counter to enter Poland. The border crossing usually takes longer in that direction.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>After passing through immigration, we’ll have breakfast before boarding our onwards train to Krakow. As the time of arrival from the sleeper train is not guaranteed, and the border crossing can be long, we will keep our options open: there are trains leaving every hour to Krakow.</span></li>
<li>If all goes according to the schedule, we’ll be arriving in Krakow at 12:30.</li>
</ul>
<span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Afternoon</span>
<ul>
<li>We’ll have lunch in Krakow, and a free afternoon. You can enjoy the Old Town, visit sites such as the Schindler’s Factory or Auschwitz, or simply rest in the hotel. <em>We do not recommend booking a return flight on that day, as there is a risk of changes in the trains schedules and/or delays at the border, making us arrive later in the day. </em></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Dinner followed by a debriefing of the tour, and for those inclined a few drinks in Krakow’s old town.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>Overnight stay in Krakow.</span></li>
</ul>
<strong>Sunday 1st November – Krakow</strong>
<ul>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>The tour</span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”> concludes, depart at your own convenience. YPT can arrange additional nights in Krakow and airport drop-off for a fee</span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>. We</span><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”> are more than happy to provide advice for ongoing flights.</span></li>
<li><span data-preserver-spaces=”true”>YPT can arrange tour extensions around Krakow.</span></li>
</ul>