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Blogs from Kiev, Ukraine, Europe
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Kyiv and Chernobyl Tour 03/05/13 - 06/05/13 (Part 2)
Published: May 18th 2013Europe » Ukraine » Kiev » Chernobyl
May 10th 2013
Dan's movie trailer he made... worth a few yucks Igor It was here, finally. A journey over a year in the making. An idea born out of a flippant comment and in less than 12 hours, it would be done and dusted. We hoped it would be worth it. Breakfast was an early affair and we then regrouped in the hotel lobby. We were being picked up at 08:10 by our tour guide. We found him outside sat in a very clean looking mini-van... almost too clean for Kyiv, where everything was a lada or worse. The driver jumped out and introduced himself. Igor. One of the few people we'd met in Ukraine who's English was not limited to 3 words and a grunt. He opened the van up and warned us not to sit on ... read more
April 7th 2013
Arrived in Kiev in the early morning after an overnight train journey from Warsaw. Around midnight the Ukrainian border guards had woken us and taken our passports away for a couple of hours, whilst we waited in a desolate train garage in an unidentified location, listening to the crashing and banging of train works all around us. Our passports were returned and we reached Kiev on time, but feeling flat and sleep-deprived. Early impressions of Kiev station didn't lighten the spirits: one of the first sights was a huge board of photos of cherub-faced missing children. We sat down in the waiting area to collect ourselves but found that this area of the station is the sleeping place of a number of sad, down-and-out homeless alcoholics. They didn't bother us, but then a larger-than-life, tough-looking old ... read more
January 4th 2013
Istanbul to Kiev – an hour layover – Kiev to New York. I was going back West, and that was how I was getting there. On paper, at least. I got as far as Kiev before things came to a screeching halt; the airplane’s questionable brakes were only the beginning of the problem. Airport employees were being vague to say the least, but from what I could gather, AeroSvit hadn’t paid their docking fees. Or they hadn’t kept up the maintenance of their aircraft to American standards. Either way, all of their flights out of Kiev were canceled for all foreseeable future. It sounds like the beginning of a bad story, but it’s actually the tale of the single best airport experience I’ve had – ever. Misery loves company, and in this case, it made for ... read more
December 19th 2012
Ukraine is a quite poor nation, but at the same time is a beautiful place that deserves a trip, expecially if you like to visit locations that are different compared with Western Europe. My trip started in Kiev, where I arrived by plane from Milan, it continued in the Crimean peninsula and ended in the sunny and rowdy Odessa. Kiev Kiev is the capital of Ukraine and is setted in the North of the country, quite near to the border with Belarus. In my opinion, Kiev is a wonderful city, absolutely a must-see place if you're going to Ukraine. My stay in Kiev lasted three days, completely adequate to visit with calm all the interesting places and to enjoy one of the main attractions of the city, the beautiful gardens of Kiev. One of the locations ... read more
July 17th 2012
Today is our last day in Kiev. We packed our bags and left them at the hostel, and after some breakfast and blogging at the cheap café nearby we set out for Caves monastery. The monastery is Ukraines most important religious site, and consists of two parts, the wall surrounded Upper Lavra and the Lower Lavra where the most important religious places are. After a few kilometers of walking we arrived to the Caves monastery. There was a 5€ per person fee to get into the Upper Lavra for, for cameras it was more expensive so we left them in their bags. The Upper Lavra was nice, but not that special. There was one impressive church and some smaller museums (without any English texts), but the two main things we were interested in, the museum of ... read more
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July 16th 2012
16.7.2012 Kiev We had an early wake up at 7.30 and even though we hadn't stayed up particularly late the night before, we were kind of tired all day. But, we had to get our bureaucratic stuff done, so couldn't stay in bed. We will return home by train, bus and boat, and the quickest route goes via Belarus. To go to Belarus we need a transit visa, which gives us permission to stay for 48 hours. So, first thing in the morning (after a heavy breakfast consisting of sausages, fried potato pancakes, fried mushrooms and coffee) we headed to the Belarus Embassy via photo shop to get passport pictures done. When we arrived at the embassy, we were first directed to some slightly shady office on the other side of the street, where a man ... read more
July 15th 2012
With a quiet room, good beds and some sleeping debt from our train ride we slept late. Johanna was the early bird and went out before me to do some shopping, while I prioritised my pillow over the womens wear shops she was going to visit. When I finally got up I went for brunch at a nearby restaurant (soup and bread for 1,5€!) and then we met up with Johanna at the Independence square. We took the metro a few stations north and went down to Dnipro to look around. This side of the river didn't however look very inviting, so we quite quickly went away from the river and found ourselves some coffee, and after this we went to St. Andrews Descent, a curvy street leading from the lower town to the upper town. ... read more
July 14th 2012
Our train arrived in Kiev at around 7 o'clock in the morning. We didn't have a room booked and didn't really feel like staying in at someone's apartment again, so we took the subway from railway station to the center to find breakfast and wifi to find a hostel. We managed to book a room at DownTown Hostel and walked there with our backpacks. Luckily the room was immediately available so we could get settled and freshen up a bit. Since we were tired after the night on the train we didn't want to do any heavy sightseeing, but decided to do a walking tour which was descibed in our guidebook. It was supposed to last about two hours but for us it was more like six. We took a few breaks, but we were quite ... read more
October 23rd 2011
Pe 21.10. Jetlag painanut pari päivää aika hyvin ja nyt perjantaina klo 17 lähtö 5hlön voimin Kiovaan viikonlopuksi. Air Balticin lennolla ja Riiassa on ruhtinaalliset 30min vaihtoaikaa. Onneksi ei ole mukana kuin käsimatkatavarat, joten ei pitäisi olla kuitenkaan ongelmaa. Kiovasta on varattu ihan ytimestä Hotel Ukraine, jonka omalta parvekkeelta on ihan huikeat näkymät itsenäisyyden aukiolle.Lähdettiin kävelemään ympäri keskustaa ja hakemaan jotain safkaa. Löydettiin aika kiva bistrotyyppinen paikka, jossa otettiin borschia ja pelmeneitä.Hyvää oli ja sen jälkeen alkoi unikin maistua. Maistettiin myös jotain paikallista paloviinaa, johon on sotkettu hunajaa ja chiliä – aika tiukkaa tavaraa. La 22.10. Brekkarin jälkeen mentiin suoraan oopperalle ostamaan illan näytökseen, Tsaikovskin Jolanta, liput. Sieltä jatkettiin Golden Gaten kautta St.Sophien kir... read more
September 9th 2011
Before I forget, video diary 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xwptSSazQg&feature=youtube_gdata And video diary 4 (which is my personal favourite!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCFLUGeW6U&feature=youtube_gdata So yes, St Petersburg was beautiful. We wandered around the city to see all the famous churches etc and went round the Hermitage. We managed to see quite a lot of it I think. By the end we had very sore feet and felt all cultured out. I particularly enjoyed the State Rooms and the 19th & 20th Century art. We also met some guys who had bought a bus from an old people's home and taken out the seats and put in bunk beds and a sofa and were driving it from London to Bankok! Which is pretty darn cool. We then got a train at 2:40 am back to Moscow, because we couldn't go straight from St ... read more
