this is my third school year in ukraine, i've visited lviv each year, the first year i went twice!! it's one of my favourite places in the country, and though it's much more touristed than kyiv, i love the city...it feels comfortable and cozy, and i've had a different experience each time i've visited...this was the first time i traveled by myself...
i took a night train from kyiv, in a coupe berth...(2nd class...there are four sleeping berths in the compartment, which has a door...as usual, i was warm enough not to use the sleep sheet or blanket)...i prefer platzcar berths (3rd class, which is heaps cheaper) but this train didn't have any of those...
my train arrived at 0630 or so, saturday morning...no one is out walking at that hour, it's still dark, and plenty chilly...(though not nearly as cold as past visits have been)...i walked from the train station toward the city center, (which is a UNESCO heritage sight,) taking streets i haven't walked before, stopping to take photos when i saw something of interest...by this point, most of my photos of the city are not of landmarks or monuments, as i've seen all of those...just photos of city life, or a different view of something normal...
i passed a park in between the two sides of svobody (freedom) street...
there is a large protest/demonstration camp set up in the middle of kyiv, the matching camp for lviv is set up here...it's much smaller, and less passionate (the western half of ukraine is generally anti russia, anti east, there isn't as much demonstrating) but it was still interesting to walk through the area, take a few photos, notice what looked different from my previous trips...at one point i found a recycling center of sorts, the first i've seen in all of ukraine...hopefully this sort of thing spreads to the rest of the country!! with this kind of decoration, who wouldn't want to recycle? while i took a few photos of the area, i saw at least six people drop stuff in the bins...not too bad considering it was still just a bit past 0700!!
as i got into the centre square of town, i walked past a cafe that has about 6 different types of strudel available...how have i not been there before? i ended up choosing two (one cherry, and one salmon/spinach) and black tea...not only was the strudel tasty, they had sauce available...i added vanilla sauce and berry sauce to the cherry studel...YUM...i'm definitely going back...
while eating strudel, i also checked my email (gotta love free wifi that is becoming more and more common throughout the country) and read the guidebook...even though this was my fourth trip to the city, there are still sights i haven't seen...(i don't think it's possible to see all the churches, there are too many)...i figured out my plan for the day...
the first stop was a museum...the national museum and memorial to victims of occupation...i don't remember the overall organization, but it isn't sponsored by the ukrainian government...i think an NGO helped with all the information and statistics displayed? the museum is small, and does not have an entry fee...i think it's more to remind people of the horrors that happened during nazi/soviet/fascist occupation...the building was once used by the local branch of the kgb as a prison, and has been left just as it was when they up and left in 1991...the paint is peeling, and a few of the cells have been set up to show specific aspects of what used to be there...i don't know if this sort of propaganda was in the prison while it was a prison, or if it was added later...it's still easy to find prints of these posters in tourist souvenir markets...
the prison courtyard is rather sparse, and any visitor leaves with the feeling of how hopeless so many of those people felt...through the main hallway is a set of posters, each poster is dedicated to one country that was affected by the nazis and communists, or sympathetic/puppet governments...each poster tells the number of prisoners taken during a certain period, the number executed, the number of missing, the number of people in that country's secret police, the number of people sent to camps, etc...seeing the numbers written that way is really startling...many countries have two posters: one for the nazi period, and one for the communist period...
after making a donation to the museum, i walked to my hostel, which was nearby...i was able to check in early, which is always a plus...my double room had a queen sized bed, a set of bunk beds, a tv, and a space hearter, as well as a nice window onto the street...
after relaxing for a while, i walked back toward the center of town...after browsing through a couple souvenir shops (why do those always interest me so much?) and watching people for a while, i started walking toward a hill...this was another sight new to me, though i've always wanted to see it...it's called castle hill, and overlooks the entire city...the bottom of the hill is a park, which is lovely, though a bit muddy at this time...i'm not entirely sure why the name is castle hill, as there is no castle there now...just the top of a hill on which is built a viewing platform...since the weather was awesome, and it was a weekend, there were heaps of people up there, but it was still easy to take a few photos:)
back down the hill, at which point i realized i was hungry...strudel 6 hours previously wasn't enough anymore...while wandering i found a 'mexican' place...yes, i know, mexican in ukraine? it wasn't bad, it wasn't great, but it was food, which i needed...
i visited the information office to get information on how to get a discount card for a particularly expensive restaurant, and how to get to zhovkva the next day...nice people always seem to work at the information office in lviv, unlike the information offices i've visited in other towns...
i watched people for a while longer...families out for a stroll, other tourists, locals on their way to somewhere more interesting, etc...i love to observe fashion, mannerisms, etc...
eventually, just as the clock hit 1800, i got to one of my favourite restaurants...it's also a microbrewery...since i can't drink that part doesn't interest me so much, but the food is good...this time i chose a baked fish...it took a while, but it was yummy...
at that point i figured i'd wandered around enough for the day...
back to my hostel...i found a tv station broadcasting a couple of the olympic hockey games, and i watched though i already knew the results...(USA beat russia in overtime!!! YAHOO!!!)
the next morning i got up slowly, as always seems to happen on a weekend trip, no matter what i plan...after two cups of tea, i checked out just before noon...i stopped for lunch at one of the cafeteria style places so popular in this country, i felt the need for vegetables...i really really really wish these kinds of places existed in more countries of the world, they are perfect for travelers on a budget...a wide variety of food for cheap:)
then it was off to the bus stop to catch a bus to zhovkva...the lady at the information office told me the bus i wanted came every 20 minutes or so...since it was sunday, i figured it wouldn't be as often...i'm glad i can read the languages here (even if i don't usually understand what i'm reading) because i noticed the name of zhovkva on a bus with a different number from what i was looking for, so i hopped on...
zhovkva is a small town, the trip was about 45 minutes in total...the best time in history for this town was when it was part of the polish empire, though i doubt the people who live there now would want to say such a thing...
for people who follow such things, this town is the birthplace of 'legendary' (lonely planet's description, not mine) cossack bohdan khmelnytsky...have you ever heard of him? me neither...according to the story, he led his men through one of the gates in town when he freed the town from the poles...(i know i've mentioned previously that the western half of ukraine has been part of various empires through the years, including the poles, austro-hungarians, etc)...
as i said, it's a small town, most of the sights are in one area...i saw several churches, though i was only able to enter two...there is an old, abandoned synagogue, which is completely surrounded by corrugated tin on the ground floor, i wasn't able to enter that either...(western ukraine used to have a rather large jewish population, much of which disappeared during WWII, and is now almost nonexistent)...
as i was wandering in front of the 'castle' i was approached by two youngsters, probably 10 or 11 years old? after throwing two snowballs at my back, they attempted to talk to me...they figured out quickly that not only was i a tourist, i was a foreigner...then they asked for bread, or money...i said no to both...i think they were trying to say they were orphans, but they looked well fed and clean to me...plus, they spoke a bit of english, which tells me they at least go to a decent school...zhovkva gets a few tourists, but the majority of them are ukrainian, their level of english would not come from being around a lot of foreign tourists...
i went down the main street to find a grocery store, and two more churches...one of the churches was completely wooden, which was a total contrast to the golden onion domes just down the street...
at that point, i was hungry again, so i found a place to eat, nothing fancy...i don't know if anything fancy exists in zhovkva, it doesn't seem like that kind of small town...they had wifi :) ...after eating i figured it was time to hop a bus back to lviv, as i wanted to get back before sunset...
back in lviv i walked back to the centre of town, and bought a coffee mug...this is probably the last thing i should've bought, seeing as how i have plenty of them...my excuse this time was that i wanted a BIG mug for school...i don't drink coffee, but calling it a tea mug doesn't sound the same...
snack was hot chocolate and chocolate cake :) ...i stayed in that cafe for a few hours, writing a letter and getting started writing postcards, then walked to the train station...the train i took was already there, so i was able to get my bedding sorted without having to maneuver around other folks...
an easy train ride got me back to kyiv, and rain...
