GROUP 1 Beijing – Moscow

Tuesday 26th October – Beijing

Morning

• Arrive at your convenience into Beijing – the capital city of China which is well connected from many countries.
• Meet the YPT guide and fellow travellers at the lobby of Zhong Gu Hotel located near Beijing Railway Station at midday

Afternoon

• Visit Beijing’s Hutong’s at Gulou area for a classic Beijing lunch – the Jianbing.
• Explore Beijing’s oldest residential area lined with tiny alleys, bars and quirky stores.
• Dinner at Sanlitun – Beijing’s night spot for beers and drinks.
• Overnight at Zhong Gu Hotel.

Wednesday 27th October – Trans-Mongolian Day #1 Bejing

• Departure on K3 train at 7:27am for the six-day journey to Moscow via Mongolia, with your fearless YPT leader keeping everyone well stocked up and prepared for this absolute epic train trip.
• The dining car attached is the Chinese dining car where they’ll have classic Chinese drinks such as beer and baijiu available. The Chinese lunch is included on this aspect of the journey.
• Arrive at the border town of Erlian at 8:20pm for Chinese border formalities, customs and immigration. The train will depart at 1:00am.

Thursday 28th October – Trans-Mongolian Day #2 Ulaanbaatar

• Arrive at 1:15am at the Mongolian border town of Dzamyn Ude, for the second set of immigration and customs formalities usually lasting about two hours. Here we’ll have a chance to disembark and wander around this rural railway station. The Mongolian dining cart is attached and will be available to us from the morning.
• Arrive in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia at 2:35pm. Here we’ll have a 45 minute stop at the railway station to stock up on cheap Mongolian beers and snacks. Money exchangers are available to convert your Chinese Yuan to Mongolian tögrög.
• Arrive at Naushki at 6:55pm for Mongolian and Russian border formalities, customs and immigration. Train will depart at 8:45pm.

Friday 29th October – Trans-Mongolian Day #3 Irkutsk

• Be sure to wake up early and enjoy the breathtaking views past the world’s biggest lake: Lake Baikal, on your way to a 9:37am stop in Irkutsk to stick up on Russian vodka, bread and cheese!
• The Russian dining cart was connected during the evening where there’s a fair chance we’ll meet the Borsch King himself. Warning: do not challenge him or his girlfriend to a vodka contest.

Saturday 30th October – Trans-Mongolian Day #4 Novosibirsk – Omsk

• Arrive into Novosibirsk at 4:00pm for a 20 minute stop to stock up again
• Continue onto Omsk for a 20 minute snowball fight outside the train

Sunday 31st October – Trans-Mongolian Day #5 Tjumin – Ekaterinburg – Perm 

• Early morning stop at Tjumin at 6:30am for those who want to stretch their legs for 20 minutes
• Arrive at Ekaterinburg at 11:28am for a 30 minute stop – beautiful large station to walk around and photograph.
• Second last stop of the journey in Perm – here we’ll have 20 minutes to stock up for our last party evening on the train!

Monday 1st November – Trans-Mongolian Day #6 Moscow

• The grand finale! Arrive into Moscow, the capital of Russia and former capital of the USSR at 1:58pm.
• Transfer to our central based hostel in Moscow for the most amazing shower experience you’ll ever have.
• We head first to one of our favourite places for a stroll around the haunting soviet statues graveyard
• Dinner and night out in Moscow!
• Overnight in hostel

GROUP 2 Moscow – Minsk – Kiev

Tuesday 2nd November

• After breakfast we’ll see the quintessential sights of Moscow: Red Square, the Mausoleum of Lenin, the Kremlin and the KGB (now FSB) headquarters
• After lunch, we’ll head to another area of Moscow to revel in the Soviet nostalgia of VDNKh park, dedicated to all of the former Soviet Republics of the USSR and complete with space shuttles, army choppers and Lenin statues!
• Option to visit the Cosmonaut Museum featuring Yuri Gagarin’s original space suit!
• We’ll then grab our bags and transfer to the airport for our flight to Minsk via Riga in order to take advantage of the visa-free entry into Belarus.
• Late evening arrival in Minsk and transfer to hotel.
• Overnight in Minsk.

Wednesday 3rd November

• After breakfast we’ll head to the Azgur workshop. This is not a place you find accidentally – you need to know about this place to get here and a lot of locals themselves don’t even know of its existence, luckily YPT do! This is the former workshop of one of the best sculptors of the USSR; today it is full of hundreds of Soviet statues from Lenin and Stalin to Mao and Kim Il Sung. It truly has to be seen to be believed!
• We’ll then transfer by car to the Stalin Line Park, nicknamed the ‘Soviet Military Disneyland’. Here you can explore Soviet bunkers, planes and artillery as well as have the chance to fire a Soviet tank and a Kalashnikov (extra cost for shooting).
• Soviet military lunch at the Stalin line.
• After a quick photo stop at one of the last remaining Stalin monuments in the former USSR, we’ll head back to Minsk for a city tour taking in the still-functioning KGB headquarters, the GUM Department Store, Lenin monument and former Nazi party and Communist party HQ.
• We’ll then enjoy dinner in a traditional brewery restaurant.
• Overnight in Minsk.

Thursday 4th November

• After breakfast, we will head to the Belaz plant situated 40 kilometres out of Minsk. Here, witness the pride of the Belorussian auto industry. You’ll take a tour around the the assembly departments and see the creation of the legend of the Belorussian engineering industry.
• These are some of the biggest vehicles in the world and are like moving tower blocks, it costs hundreds of dollars just to turn on the engine and they truly have to be seen to be believed.
• As a treat, the plant will give us some Belorussian tea, cookies shaped like dump trucks and even a mini-dump truck souvenir to take home.
• You’ll have the chance to photograph these beasts and climb on top of one.
• Return to Minsk where we’ll visit the impressive Soviet-era museum of the Great Patriotic War.
• Those continuing on to Ukraine will be transferred to the airport for the evening flight to Kiev.
• End of Group 2.
• Evening arrival in Kiev and transfer to a local hotel.
• Overnight in Kiev.

GROUP 3 Kiev – Pripyat – Kiev/Odessa

Friday 5th November

• Enjoy a free day in Kiev with an optional visit to a shooting range, tank driving or both!
• At 18:00, we meet up as a group outside of the hotel and head to the legendary Hospital Bar. Listed among the top places to drink in before you die, if you want to see people being set on fire or tied down and fed alcohol through a giant syringe, this is the place!
• Dinner and drinks at the Hospital Bar.
• Overnight in hotel.

Saturday 6th November

• We wake up nice and early to get on our comfortable AC minibus to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. On the way there,we stop for breakfast at a well-stocked gas station as well as watch a documentary on the disaster.The journey to the first checkpoint will take around two hours.
• On arrival, we go through the entry procedure and processing of our permits. This can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to one hour.
• Visit the village Zalissya and the main square of the town of Chernobyl.
• Lunch at the Workers’ Cafe (no produce is grown onsite).
• Visit the dock, local shops, Monument to the Firefighters, exposition of the remotely operated machines, hills of the buried village Kopachi, rustic kindergarten, panoramic angle of NPPA and the new sarcophagus, the Stone Road sign of Pripyat, Bridge of Death, Lenin Street, the main square of Pripyat, supermarket, Amusement Park, School #3 (with gas masks), and the Olympic swimming pool.
• Visit Duga 3, nicknamed the “Russian Woodpecker,” a Soviet over-the-horizon radar at its base Chernobyl-2.
• We will also try our best to visit some sights we cannot mention online.
• Transfer back to Kiev.
• After a short rest we’ll head out for an evening meal and some drinks.
• Overnight in Kiev hotel.

Sunday 7th November

• We load our bags onto the bus and hit the road into Southern Ukraine with a breakfast stop on the way.
• Our first stop will be one of the most incredible sights in Ukraine, a recently-decommissioned Soviet ICBM base located in the wilderness of the Ukrainian steppe. If the missiles were launched from this top-secret Soviet base, the target cities were New York, Chicago, London and Paris and after about 30 min and one button the world as we know it would have been gone!
• We’ll complete a fully guided tour of the base and even descend into the original control room and have the chance to set off the launch sequence that would have launched the rockets.
• Around the base are hundreds of tons of discarded Soviet military equipment from missiles and tanks to fighter jets and anti aircraft weapons. You are free to film and photograph whatever you like.
• Traditional Ukrainian dumplings and tea at the base before we hit the road to Odessa, arriving in the late evening and check into our hotel located in the Arkadia district.
• Free time for dinner in one of the many restaurants around the hotel.
• Overnight in Odessa.

GROUP 4 Odessa – Tiraspol – Bender – Chisinau – Bucharest

Monday 8th November

• Group 3 end in the morning.
• Breakfast in Odessa, followed by an optional tour of the infamous Odessa Catacombs (extra cost of 10 Euro). These are one of the largest subterranean networks on earth and were used by everybody from the Mafia dumping bodies to the partisans attacking Nazi troops.
• After the tour you’ll have free time in this historic city and have the chance to explore downtown.
• In the late afternoon we’ll meet back at the hotel where we’ll be met by our team from Transnistria who will be leading us into the rebel republic.
• We depart via bus for the 3-hour private bus ride to Tiraspol, capital of the breakaway republic of Transnistria.
• On arrival at the border we will cross the no man’s land between Ukraine and Transnistria which is an infamous smuggling route and we register with immigration and KGB/MGB before transferring to the local version of the Soviet InTourist Hotel. This is the quintessential Soviet experience in the region’s original tourist hotel.
• We go for dinner locally with drinks afterwards in one of the country’s few nightclubs.
• Overnight in a Soviet Hotel.

Tuesday 9th November

• For breakfast we’ll head to a great Ukrainian restaurant in Tiraspol. Be prepared as Transnistrians are well known for handing out complimentary shots of pepper-flavoured Vodka, whether it’s 9:00am or not!
• We’ll then kick off our city tour of Tiraspol and stop at the flea market in Tiraspol, here it’s possible to buy all kinds of Soviet antiques for rock bottom prices. You never know what you will find!
• Walk down the main street called October 25th street which has a billboard of former President Smirnoff: The warlord who turned president for almost twenty years. We’ll see the embassies of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the foreboding HQ of the infamous Sheriff organization and stop at a bookshop to pick up some Russian and Transnistrian nationalist paraphernalia, a mug with Putin or a fridge magnet of ICBMs firing across the atmosphere — why not?
• We’ll then stop at the impressive House of the Soviets, built in Stalinist style with a large bust of Lenin outside.
• We’ll mix with students at the Dolce Vita cafe, an inexpensive place with great buffet-style food and the eatery of choice for students at nearby Tiraspol university.
• We’ll then transfer to the other end of October 25th street to see the North Korean style statue of Russian General Suvorov. Surrounding it are the flags of Russia, Transnistria and the breakaway brotherhood states of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.
• Have your picture taken in front of a giant crest of Transnistria featuring the hammer and sickle!
• Visit Parliament, housing one of the biggest statues of Lenin outside Russia.
• Visit the Eternal Flame Memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet-Afghan war, WW2 and the Transnistrian civil war. Check out the battle-damaged T-34 monument to WW2; it’s permitted to climb on it and get an awesome photo.
• We’ll then switch it up and board an old Soviet ferry without an engine and cross the Dniester river to see how the village people live across from Tiraspol. This is an area truly lost in the USSR!
• We’ll visit a still-functioning palace of culture with an enormous head of Lenin outside, pockmarked with Kalashnikov bullet holes after Moldovan troops symbolically ‘executed’ him during the civil war.
• We’ll then visit a stunning and completely self-sufficient monastery complex that has to be seen to be believed. We know many of the priests there and sometimes they allow us to sample their incredible homemade wine, however, this is subject to whether the one priest with the key is available on the day.
• We pay a visit to a local store which hasn’t changed since the USSR and still uses an abacus to calculate the total. Here we’ll stock up on $3 Kvint cognac (One of the best cognacs of the Soviet era), $1 vodka and local smoked cheese.
• We then head to a stunning viewpoint and Soviet obelisk that was one of the most brutal battlefields during WW2. In the Russian-speaking world, it’s respect to the dead to raise a shot of cognac or vodka in their honour and we’ll do just that!
• Return to Tiraspol and head for dinner at 7Fridays, a Tiraspol institution!
• Overnight in Tiraspol.

Wednesday 10th November

• After breakfast we Transfer to Bender, one of Transnistria’s biggest cities and the site of fierce fighting during the civil war. We enter one of the largest outdoor markets in all of Transnistria. Guests will be able to shop and buy anything they want at very, very low prices. Also, many opportunities for old-world-type photos. This is a true old school, Russian market. Expect pigs’ heads, spices and everything imaginable for sale.
• We leave the market and continue walking down the main street until we reach the main church in the center, well renovated and a favorite place for couples to get married. Here you can buy inexpensive Russian Orthodox jewellery and icons.
• We’ll check out the city hall which has been left exactly as it was during the civil war and is still filled with bullet holes.
• We continue walking down the main street until we arrive at Lenin Park. We view the main fountain, the bust of Lenin before going into the local cinema which is largely unchanged since Soviet times except Mission Impossible is playing instead of Soviet propaganda.
• We continue to walk down the main street until we reach the train station, renovated and well maintained. It seems like a ghost town because only a few trains stop here, and there are almost no passengers. Besides the train station is an old Soviet train from WWII with the hammer and sickle on the front.
• We’ll have lunch in the town at a local cafe called CCCP, this is designed to create a sense of nostalgia for locals and is packed with original Soviet memorabilia and great food.
• We head to the river to check out ‘The Great October’ theme park. There are old amusement rides including bumper cars and mini Ferris wheels here. A scene right out of the 1950s, it may look abandoned but the rides are still operating and are very cheap.
• After Bender, we’ll board our bus for the short two-hour journey to Chisinau, the capital of Europe’s least visited country: Moldova!
• Check into the local Soviet-era hotel and head out for dinner and drinks at an incredible steakhouse.
• Overnight in Chisinau hotel.

Thursday 11th November

• After breakfast, we’ll start our city walking tour of Chisinau. We’ll visit the abandoned National Hotel, see one of the most stunning monasteries in the city which was thankfully spared destruction under communism, and see the infamous city prison which has been declared a breach of human rights amongst other things.
• We’ll see the enormous World War II Memorial and climb some tanks and surface to air missiles at the Military Museum!
• Visit the local flea market, great for antiques and Soviet kitsch!
• Lunch at a local Soviet-style canteen followed by free time in the city.
• Overnight in Chisinau hotel.

Friday 12th November

• After breakfast we’ll board our bus for the thirty-minute drive to Cricova Winery to see the wine-making process and to — of course — sample a good amount of Eastern Europe’s best wine! This is one of the most fantastic wine cellars you are ever likely to see. Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel have wine collections here and on display is wine liberated from Hermann Göring during the last days of WW2. Yuri Gagarin famously spend two nights getting drunk in the tunnels and claimed ‘’it was easier to get to space than to pull myself out of Cricova Winery!’’.
• Free afternoon in Chisinau.
• We’ll meet up in the afternoon to grab our bags and souvenir wine and head to the station for the 16:55 train to Bucharest. This is an old-school communist-era 4-berth sleeper and still has the made in the DDR plates on some of the walls!
• During the night, we’ll pass border control and the train will be lifted off the tracks to change wheel gauge.
• Overnight on the sleeper train.
• End of Group 4.

GROUP 5 Bucharest – Sofia – Skopje – Pristina – Mitrovica – Tirana

Saturday 13th November

• 00 arrival in Bucharest (depending on customs).
• Check into the hotel for a short rest.
• We conclude the tour in true YPT style, as we meet our local Romanian guide for a day tour of Ceausescu’s Bucharest! No trip to Romania would be worth its salt unless we went and looked at everything and anything Ceausescu related, the don of Eastern Bloc extreme. We will do a local walking tour, seeing all the must-see sites from “revolutionary” times such as the enormous Palace of the Parliament, see where the communist regime went down in flames on the bullet-riddled streets around Revolutionary Square. We’ll also see the churches that avoided communist destruction by being placed on wheels and slid across the city and much more.
• Free afternoon in Bucharest to explore the old town at your own leisure before meeting up for traditional Romanian fare and drinks in Bucharest’s old town.
• Overnight in Bucharest hotel.

Sunday 14th November

• Free morning in Bucharest to grab supplies for our train adventure ahead!
• At midday we’ll board the train to Bulgaria, passing through the Romanian countryside before crossing over the mighty Danube river. This was the site of the infamous gulags forming part of the Black Sea Canal Project in the darkest days of communist Romania.
• We’ll switch trains at the Bulgarian border and board a communist-era train to Sofia.
• We will arrive around 22:00 and transfer to our nearby hotel before sampling some nearby Bulgarian street food.
• Overnight in Sofia hotel.

Monday 15th November

• After breakfast, we’ll head to downtown Sofia and explore this ancient capital with remnants of many empires from the Romans to the Soviets.
• We’ll see the former Communist HQ, remains of the Roman underground, the North Korean style monument to the Red Army and the stunning Alexander Nevsky cathedral.
• We’ll explore the local flea market selling everything from Soviet medals to Nazi daggers.
• After lunch we’ll head out of the city to the former house of the communist dictator of Bulgaria. This stunning mansion, complete with nuclear bunkers, is now the National Museum of Bulgaria and features a huge array of ancient treasures combined with wonderful communist architecture.
• Free time followed by a king’s feast in a wonderful and authentic Bulgarian restaurant tucked in a backstreet away from the tourist area.
• Overnight in Sofia.

Tuesday 16th November

• We’ll grab supplies and head to the bus station for the 09.00 bus to Skopje, Macedonia. This is a smooth ride through stunning mountain scenery, and border control is usually fast and easy.
• We’ll arrive in the mid afternoon and check into our hotel in the hills of Skopje.
• After getting settled, we will take a walk into town and have some Macedonian street food.
• We’ll then start our city tour of Skopje taking in the monument to Broz Tito and the vendetta tower used for protection against blood feuds — an ancient violent law that still binds many people in the Balkans.
• We’ll pay a visit to the Mother Teresa museum before marvelling at the many gaudy statues that make up Skopje, including the centrepiece of Alexander the Great on horseback, which cost almost 10 million euro.
• We’ll cross the ancient stone bridge into the charming Ottoman Old Town and step into a different world. This is the perfect place to pick up cheap antiques and try Turkish tea, coffee and sweets.
• We’ll see the formidable fortress of Skopje, which is stunning when illuminated at night.
• Free time to explore at your own pace before meeting up back at the hotel for a traditional Macedonian dinner.
• Overnight in Skopje.

Wednesday 17th November

• After breakfast we’ll board our private minibus to Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo — one of the world’s youngest countries!
• On the way to Pristina, we will stop at Matka and take a walk along the gorge. It is labeled as the most beautiful place in Macedonia and this credit is highly deserved! As we’ll be visiting in winter, we’ll mostly have the whole gorge to ourselves.
• Following lunch at an awesome restaurant overlooking Matka, we will continue onto Pristina.
• Check into our very comfortable private apartments at in Pristina. The apartments are run by a very hospitable Kosovan family who kept this business going even through the darkest days of the Kosovo War.
• Depending on arrival time, we’ll then head downtown and check out the fascinating Ethnographic Museum, detailing life in a traditional Kosovar home in centuries gone by.
• We’ll then visit the museum of Kosovo with discarded artillery and weapons left over from the war. Usually devoid of visitors, this museum details the ancient history of this land and covers their brutal fight for independence.
• We’ll then head to a local Kosovan restaurant for delicious food and to warm ourselves up with their homemade rakija!
• Overnight in private apartment in Pristina.

Thursday 18th November

• We get up early to board our private bus for the extremely scenic four-hour drive to Brod.
• Brod is populated by the Gorani people. The Gorani have a total population of roughly 50,000 people. They are primarily sheep and cattle herders, but also have a cartel network of dessert/sweet shops. They live in a very geographically small mountainous area of the most southern part of Kosovo, in and near the city of Dragash just south of Prizren. The Gorani have their own language, which is a Torlakian Slavic language, related to Serbian and Macedonian, with Albanian and Turkish loanwords.
• We will stop for lunch at the new hotel that has been built just on the outskirts of Brod.
• We take our time walking around the old village, where there are numerous chances for some great photos and some wonderful hiking routes.
• The village was heavily damaged during the Kosovo war as both Serbian troops and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) militias operated in the area. Many homes are still ruined by artillery and NATO strikes and some of the walls of buildings are still daubed with ‘Allah hu akbar’’, faded graffiti left by the KLA.
• A chance for dinner and drinks with Brod’s very famous “Borat,” a somewhat local celebrity that usually comes to meet our groups and is very happy to have a drink and have photos taken.
• Leisurely drive back to Pristina.
• Overnight at private apartment.

Friday 19th November

• We wake up early and grab breakfast before heading to the bus station for the short bus journey to Mitrovica.
• This tense and divided city has been the scene of numerous bloody fights and international incidents. Divided into two parts by a river, Kosovan and Serbian, each side is like crossing into a different nation.
• We will arrive on the Kosovar side and grab lunch in a local restaurant, before exploring the sights on this side of the river.
• We then cross the tense bridge, guarded by international peacekeepers, and enter the Serbian side. We will see huge political murals honouring Serb commanders, generals, and paramilitaries as well as visit a bizarre souvenir shop that sells every pro-Russian, pro-Putin and pro-Serbian thing you can imagine.
• We then take a leisurely walk to the top of the town, where there is an awesome communist monument and incredible views over this divided city. You will likely see some international Black Hawk helicopters patrolling the city from here.
• We cross back into the Kosovar side and catch the bus back to Pristina.
• On arrival we start our city tour of Pristina, taking in things like the Bill Clinton statue, and stroll past the university to the Grand Hotel and UNMIK, the Skenderberg monument and the new Government Building, then the historic mosques and the tight lanes of the Old Quarter. You will see cafes, street market stalls, kids hawking cigarettes and phone cards, plus the vibrant life of Kosovo’s biggest city.
• Free time back at the hotel before we head out for a group dinner in an awesome local restaurant, where you will be brought numerous local dishes until you can take no more!
• Overnight in Pristina.

Saturday 20th November

• A free morning in Kosovo before we meet up at midday to head to Albania, we’ll enjoy a scenic drive through the Albanian mountains stopping for photo opportunities and lunch on the way.
• Evening arrival in Tirana and check into the centrally located hotel.
• Head out in the evening for some awesome Albanian food, followed by rakija in a spinning sky bar in downtown Tirana. Doesn’t drinking grape-based moonshine while spinning in a circle at the top of one of Tirana’s tallest buildings sounds like a great idea?
• Overnight in Tirana.
• End of Group 5 with international flight options to most major European destinations, ferries to Italy, and major road links.

GROUP 6 Tirana – Budva – Kotor – Belgrade – Sarajevo – Zagreb – Ljubljana

Sunday 21st November

• Breakfast at the hotel before we check out, store our bags and begin an extensive city tour of Albania, we will see many relics of the communist regime, including a bizarre and foreboding pyramid that is perfect for climbing up for those who are brave enough!
• Lunch at one of Tirana’s many great restaurants, with the option to eat in the ironic KFC that now overlooks the former home of Enver Hoxha.
• We then head to the infamous House of Leaves, this was the surveillance centre that the communist authorities used to spy on the population of Albania, foreign embassies and the rare foreign tourists that dared to enter the country back then.
• We then pay a visit to one of Tirana’s best kept secrets: a collection of hulking Soviet statues hidden beneath an alleyway. While it is not allowed to enter, as always, your YPT guide can get around it and allow you to get some great shots of Tirana’s former Lenin and Stalin monuments!
• We then head to one of the vast former government bunkers of the Hoxha regime, this is where the running of the country would have been coordinated from in the event of an expected nuclear war and is a great insight into the advanced paranoia of the regime.
• We’ll then head back to the hotel and meet our driver for the trip to Montenegro through the mountains of Northern Albania!
• On arrival in Budva, we’ll check into our accommodation in the old town and walk along the coast to a local bikers bar for dinner and drinks.
• Overnight in Budva.

Monday 22nd November

• Do a tour of the beautiful Montenegro coastlines! We will see Saint Stefan, Budva, Kotor and other little villages around the area. This really is one of the most beautiful parts of Europe but is still relatively untouched.
• We’ll see the marina sporting the super-yachts of Russian and European billionaires. We’ll be able to get very close to these incredible displays of wealth.
• Visit to a yard full of former Yugoslavian attack submarines and anti-aircraft guns.
• After a short hike into the hills above Kotor, we’ll head to Bar for some quick dinner, before we board the Yugoslavian-era overnight train to Belgrade.
• As this train has no dining cart, we will stack up on drinks and snacks before we depart and can happily drink the night away on board.
• Overnight on the train.

Tuesday 23rd November

• Early morning arrival into Belgrade where we will exchange some local cash and head to our hotel for the night: a former Yugoslavian cruise ship now turned into a floating hotel!
• After a rest and freshen up at the hotel we head out to explore Belgrade and join a communist tour. Find out the most interesting stories about former Yugoslavia, World War II, Tito’s life, Youth Relay Baton Movement, 90s war, NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 and democratic changes at the beginning of the third millennium. Visit Museum of Yugoslav history which is also a resting place for the lifetime president of Yugoslavia, Tito.
• We’ll also see such sites as the Republic Square, Bohemian Quarter, Kalemegdan Park, and the Belgrade Fortress.
• Explore the grounds of rival teams Red Star Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade, whose stadiums are covered in interesting political graffiti. Both of these teams have infamous gangs of ultras, many of whom formed ruthless paramilitary squads during the 90s wars.
• We’ll then head out to sample the delicious local cuisine. Tonight, we will go to Skadarlija – the pedestrian street through in which old Belgradian music can constantly be heard. As if the bars, restaurants, and music weren’t enough to keep us entertained on this street, it is also home to incredible artwork which adorn the blank-walled buildings on the south side.
• Stay out as late as you desire – Belgrade has many, many busy party spots on a Saturday night!
• Overnight in Belgrade.

Wednesday 24th November

• After breakfast on board the hotel, we’ll board our private transport to the war-torn capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sarajevo.
• The drive to Bosnia is stunning and takes in rolling mountain scenery.
• Arriving in the late evening, we’ll check into our accommodation downtown for a short rest before heading back out to town to warm ourselves up with traditional burek (meat pie) and local wine.
• Overnight in Sarajevo.

Thursday 25th November

• We head out and grab breakfast in Sarajevo, for coffee lovers, Bosnian coffee is incredible!
• We then meet our local guides and minibus for an excursion to the tunnel of hope, a war-damaged home with a tunnel network underneath that is now a museum and a fascinating insight into the lifeline of this city when it was under the longest siege in history.
• After this we head to the Serbian side of Sarajevo, complete with Ratko Mladic banners lining the streets. We continue up to the mountain that overlooks Sarajevo and provides stunning views. We then explore the bobsleigh track from the 1984 Olympics, surrounded by bunkers. This eerie monument has been left to decay since the war but provides excellent urban exploration and photography opportunities. On the way we will have the chance to explore many war-damaged abandoned buildings.
• We head back down into Sarajevo, stopping at the spot where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was dramatically assassinated — an event which sparked the First World War — before grabbing lunch nearby.
• Begin the Sarajevo War Tour, covering sights related to siege time, such as the Sarajevo roses, Children’s memorial, Post office, Canned beef memorial, Sniper Alley, Holiday Inn hotel. The tour will also feature personal stories from the war from the local guide.
• Free time in the evening before exploring the Ottoman-style Old Town, its markets and sampling some of the amazing Sarajevo cuisines before winding down with some drinks.
• Overnight in Sarajevo hotel.

Friday 26th November

• Catch the morning bus from Sarajevo to Zagreb. As this bus is during the daytime, we will enjoy incredible Balkan scenery as we make our way from Bosnia to Croatia.
• We’ll pass through many war-ravaged and forgotten towns and cities across Bosnia before we arrive in Zagreb at around 20:00 – a perfect time to check in, wash up and head out for some food.
• We will walk from the hotel, through the Christmas Market and pick up some mulled wine and food from the fair.
• Overnight at Zagreb hotel.

Saturday 27th November

• Wake up and try some delicious Croatian breakfast!
• After breakfast, we’ll visit the WW2 underground tunnels and the basement used as a shelter during the air raids on Zagreb as well as learn more about life during the communist era in Zagreb, the fall of Yugoslavia and recent turbulent years of Croatian history.
• We’ll take a walk around the Museum of bombing of Zagreb before taking a funicular to the top of the city and visiting the unique and bizarre Museum of Broken Relationships.
• Free time in the city before meeting up in the evening for a meal of hearty Croatian food.
• In the evening, we will depart on the three-hour bus to Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• After checking into our hotel, we’ll head out for some food and enjoy the local Christmas markets.
• Overnight in Ljubljana.
• End of group 6

GROUP 7 Ljubljana – Budapest – Bratislava – Prague – Warsaw

Sunday 28th November

• We’ll begin a communist tour of Ljubljana in the morning to explore the one Yugoslavian country that mostly avoided the horrors of the 1990’s Yugoslav wars.
• Lunch in the city before we board the afternoon bus to the Hungarian capital of Budapest!
• Check into hotel and overnight in Budapest.

Monday 29th November

• After breakfast, we’ll head to the outskirts of Budapest to Memento Park; this is where the many hulking Soviet monuments that dominated the city during communist times were dumped.
• We’ll then head back to the centre of Budapest to visit the infamous ‘Hospital in the Rock’, a bunker used as a hospital by the Nazis and later converted into a nuclear bomb shelter by the Soviets.
• Free time to explore Budapest at your own pace before we meet up in the evening for a hearty meal and a few drinks.
• Overnight in Budapest.

Tuesday 30th November

• We jump on the bus at Budapest Station and begin the three-hour journey to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia.
• Arrival and transfer to our accommodation and a chance for some quick R&R before we head out for some lunch.
• We’ll then meet our local guides who will pick us up in a communist-era Skoda and take us on an action packed tour of alternative Bratislava. Expect abandoned communist weapons factories, Soviet war monuments and Brutalist architecture, as well as a short jaunt into Austria as we step over the border.
• Return to Bratislava for dinner in a local beer hall with fantastic Slovakian food.
• Overnight in Bratislava.

Wednesday 1st December

• After breakfast, we jump on the bus from Bratislava to Prague.
• Afternoon arrival, before we transfer to our hotel in a non tourist area of Prague.
• We’ll enjoy some free time in Prague to rest up after a long tour before meeting in the evening for dinner and drinks in the authentic part of Prague away from the tourist crowds.
• Overnight in Prague.

Thursday 2nd December

• Our first stop of the day will be the Museum of Communism. Located next to a casino and above a McDonald’s in what was once a nobleman’s palace, the Prague Museum of Communism recalls an era of the ever-shifting identity of Czechia that was ruled by an oppressive communist regime. Open since 2001, this incredible museum includes a statue of Lenin, a replica classroom from the era complete with eerie student mannequins, and propaganda posters that display the often-sensational imagery of the time.
• We’ll grab lunch before having free time to enjoy the old town of Prague
• Meetup back at the hotel for our overnight transport to Krakow, Poland.
• Overnight on bus or train.

Friday 3rd December – Krakow

• Early morning arrival into Krakow. We drop our bags at the hotel before meeting our driver for a journey into one of the darkest periods of the 20th Century: the Holocaust.
• We drive to the town of Oswiecim and onward to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the site of the biggest mass extermination of the 20th century.
• We begin with a tour of Camp One, home of the infamous ‘work makes you free’ sign, the gas chambers and crematoria, before heading to Camp 2. This trip lasts the whole day and is a very physically and emotionally draining experience.
• Head back to Krakow for free time to absorb the day’s events.
• We head out for dinner and drinks in this extremely picturesque and Christmassy town.
• Overnight in Krakow.

Saturday 4th December – Warsaw

• We take the early morning train to Warsaw and check into our hotel.
• We’ll take you on a tour of alternative Warsaw, focusing on the brutal battle that took place here in WW2 and the subsequent communist years.
• We’ll pay a visit to one of Europe’s best WW2 museums complete with Nazi and Soviet tanks, rockets, planes and artillery.
• Traditional Polish dinner and drinks to round off our epic adventure.
• Overnight in Warsaw

Sunday 5th December – Warsaw

• We’ll say our farewells and bring in the end of the tour
• YPT can help to arrange accommodation or onward travel for those who require it.

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