Blogs from Lviv, Ukraine, Europe - page 4

On the 30 April my May holiday officially began! My friends and I are on the trip now- the "Venetian night" tour, that consists of visiting Budapest, Venice and Verona! This is my first journey without parents or teachers! As we came to Lviv, where the tour started, early in the morning we had a complimentary Lviv sightseeing from the tour company! But our emotions started with having breakfast at the train station! The station in Lviv has nothing to do with the one in Odessa where homeless people are all around! Even pink trees resembling sakura were in bloom!! All I wanna say that I really like Lviv! It is a really european side of Ukraine that i didn't expect to be so cool) We were even interviewed by local television about how we liked ... read more

Kamianets-Podilskyi, the Carpathian Mountains, Lviv and an egg museum In western Ukraine we first went to a city called Kamianets-Podilskyi. Tourists visiting Kamianets-Podilskyi come there to see the old town and the fortress. Over the centuries power over Kamianets-Podilskyi has shifted several times. With each new ruler came new architecture styles. This has given the old town a special character with different cultures living side by side. The most obvious example of this can be seen in the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul. It was originally built in the end of the 16th century when Kamianets-Podilskyi was part of Poland. It was then a catholic cathedral. In the 17th century Turkey took over the power for a while. They turned the cathedral into a mosque and in the process they built a minaret outside the ... read more

For Spring break I thought to make some bigger trip and to somewhere outside Poland. And idea came to me -Ukraine. And so it was decided. Thursday evening I packed my backpack and went to Warszawa Centralna. 04.10 1.30 am Train Warsaw-Krakow The journey started. I always have mixed feeling before trips - excitement and also worry. I always worry if I am going to get on the right train, if everything will be OK. So with these mixed feelings I put my backpack on my shoulders and went out to evening Warsaw. The weather was great and I got the last tram to train station. The beginning did not go very smooth, the train was late 40 minutes and I have to transfer to another train in Krakow. But it also had the upside - ... read more

Pitching up at the apartment in Lviv - which I had rented for Ana and me to spend three days in over New Year - gave me an improbable sense of déjà vu. As we entered the cosy flat on vulytsya Fedorova I felt as though I was not stepping into the home of a rotund lady called Marianna, but of my imagined thirty-five year old self. It was clean, light, and decorated in a comfortable style that, subconsciously, I had aspired to wrapping myself in ever since being punched and kicked out of a Stalin-era ghetto the year before. My lazy Ukrainian and fondness for big cities would never let me settle in the west of Ukraine, but when finding a home becomes more of a priority than finding adventure and a good story, I ... read more

Today I dedicated myself to finding Lviv, the one in the travelbooks. I searched for a park, found one, got lost, someone kindly escorted me back downtown. I took more photos of statues and building. I bought a Russain doll. I finally found a Ukranian restaurant (note: Lonely Planet book is out of date. One of their recommended restaurants is now a Greek bistro, and the other must have changed civic numbers) and had Ukranian borsh. The problem I have with Lviv is the air pollution. Ladas and Mercedes and buses and taxis roar through the streets in the old city and the buildings and surrounding hills trap the exhaust. The high pressure that gives sunny days also traps fumes. Then there are the countless smokers in every public place. Cigarettes are very cheap, and sadly ... read more