Surviving the Night Train

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Our first official "sightseeing" day came on our third day in Lviv. Lonely Planet had a walking tour of the city, so we decided to do that.

We visited many churches/cathedrals but some in particular stood out. The roman catholic cathedral was our first stop. It was quite impressive from the outside as it occupied the best part of Ploscha Katedralna. Inside was more like an art gallery than a cathedral. The stations of the cross were painted on every available wall and pillar. The whole ceiling of the cathedral had renaissance muriels covering every space.

The next church worth mentioning is the Dominican church which was so grand and immense inside that it really didn't feel like a church. There was gold leaf decoration everywhere and so much detail in every tiny muriel, window or statue.

During our tour we noticed that a lot of the churches had sermons on and were packed. Some even had the sermon broadcast on speakers outside the church where many people stood and listened. Orthodox catholicism seems to be the primary religion so there is a lot of kneeling and crossing yourself.

It was around two when Rob lost the route on the tour, so we decided to head towards the "high castle". Whilst we had learnt not to expect castles as we know them in the English sense, we were expecting something ressembling a castle. The walk up to the high castle was interesting in itself. We walked through a very non-touristy area which was massively different from Lviv centre. The traffic was just as chaotic as everywhere else, but life moved a lot slower in other aspects.

When we got to the top of the mound the view was overwhelming. It was the highest point in Lviv as far as the horizon. Even the high rise appartments looked impressive from such a height. It was definitely worth the walk to the top.

We had "dinner" in a café at the foot of the mound. The menu was in English but rather unclear. I had a cucumber salad which was a bowl of cucumber and parsely. It was also here that we decided that Ukrainian beer really leaves much to be desired.

As our train wasn't too leave till nine we decided to sit and people watch in the central square. There were two police men who pulled over every car and then kept them for ages. We also watched a wedding group have their pictures infront of pretty buildings. (After the police pulled over half of the party in their cars.)

We had a quick tea back at the same pizza place we ate yesterday. We then headed back to the hostel to pay and check accomodation in Kiev one last time. There were people in the kitchen to talk to, so our accomodation searches weren't that efficient.

The walk to the station took about forty minutes and really wasn't as scary as we remembered from arriving, (though it was as dark.) Our train left at 9:10 and we were in carriage 15 which was about a 1km walk from the front of the train. Our cabin already had a lady asleep in a bottom bunk, so we put our bags in and sat in the corridor. The cabin was too small and claustrophobic with four people in. Also we were both on top bunks which were very narrow and rather high up. Scary stuff. We sat in the corridor for an hour and a half but gradually people disappeared into their cabins, and we decided we should probably do the same. We sat on my bunk and played cards and had amazing smoked traditional Ukrainian cheese for supper. It wasn't terrible as we first thought, but everytime the train jolted we had to cling on for fear of falling out of the bunk. We eventually got into bed and turned the lights off around three and settled in for a rather disruptive night.

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Comments

[kate]

murals or muriels
Hi Those ducks on Hilda Ogden's wall have become part of English folk lore. But I bet her muriel wasn't half as good as the ones you saw!!!