The first time i visited lviv, we spent
one day in the city, and it was FREEZING...this time, i got to spend
three days, and it was spring...lovely...
i took the night train to lviv,
arriving at 0745...the train station was being renovated, so the main
entrance wasn't open...fortunately, another side door was open...i
took a taxi into town, though i figured out later that wasn't really
necessary...if i'd had a full map of lviv, i would've walked...oh
well...
i'd made arrangements to meet up with a
friend at 10, but i was in the city center by 0800, so i just
wandered...when cloe and i visited in february we didn't see as much
of the city centre...we didn't see all the churches...the city centre
is a UNESCO site, but not much was happening at 0800...i supposed
most tourist areas aren't busy at that hour...
my friend arrrived on time, and we
continued wandering, as our guest house reservation didn't start
until noon...the guesthouse was great...really close to the
university, quite small...quiet, we never heard any street noise...a
garden out back...
after checking in, we wandered
again...my friend had also previously visited lviv, also during a
colder time of year...it was nice to walk with someone who had some
idea of where we were going, but not too much...we both had places we
wanted to see, but no real sense of urgency...when you travel a lot,
you learn to appreciate what you do see, but not get super frustrated
if you don't get to see everything on your list...
we started with a church not too far
from our guest house...it's beautiful, but there is no place to stand
to get a good photo of the church...the nearby buildings are too
close...clearly they weren't think of photographers when the church
was built...hee hee...the inside was nice...a bit like an orthodox
church, but i'm pretty sure this one was catholic...st george's?
i think that was the day we saw a
chocolate shop...i'd seen this chocolate shop during my first visit,
but i didn't know there was an upstairs...wow...lviv handmade
chocolates...YUM...heaps of truffles, bricks of chocolate, t-shirts,
etc...it was awesome...and since i wasn't sick this time, i was able
to appreciate all of it...it would've been easy to spend a lot of
money in there...
over the three days we visited several
coffee shops, and a few chocolate shops...i'm not sure how lviv got
to be so big on chocolate and coffee, considering the beans don't
grow in ukraine...that being said, they've done a great job...the
goodies available in those coffee shops are some of the best baking
i've had in ukraine! Our last afternoon in the city we spent a while
in a coffee shop just on the corner of the square at the city
centre...one of the best chocolate cakes i've ever had:)
Our first majour meal was at a
brewery...soooooooo good...not surprisingly, i ordered too much...and that was after taking a long time to figure out what i wanted to order in the first place...the menu was comprehensive, to say the least...
it was awesome, and i'm glad i got to try everything...bo is a chef,
so he always wants to try different foods...this is one of three
breweries in the city, all three have restaurants attached...we had
another meal at another one of the breweries another day, but i
didn't think it was quite as good...(and the customer service wasn't
nearly as good)
at one point we walked for a while to
find a playground cloe and i had seen during our winter lviv
trip...it's in the middle of some bigger apartment buildings, and
isn't large, but there is something about it that i just love...we
ended up walking a lot farther than expected, at one point finding
ourselves on a path near a church that had stopping points for the
different times of jesus on a cross...finally, we found the
playground...we ended up hanging out for a while, watching a few
local kids playing pick up soccer...the kid who looked the youngest
looked to have the most talent...it was a cement playing surface, but
these kids were running hard!
We ate a few meals at a chain
restaurant that has cafeteria style food...it's an easy to way to big
or small, heavy or light, healthy or not...we also walked around a couple food markets...i don't know why it took me so long to buy homemade pickles in ukraine...made in a salty vinegar...YUM!!
we investigated a heap of
churches...lviv could be called church town...it seems like every
time you turn a corner, you see another church...they are mostly
catholic, but there are a few orthodox as well...most of the churches
are easily identifiable as such, but not always...we found one tucked
behind another building, i wouldn't have seen it except for noticing
a bunch of people coming out to the street...
we explored the jewish quarter, or what
is possible to be seen now...lviv used to have a large jewish
population...world war two wasn't kind to the jews in ukraine, as in
much of the rest of europe...synagogue square is empty...a school
that used to teach rabbis now has graffiti all over one of the
walls...there are placards in one area, giving some history of this
area, showing photos of past and future, as well as listing some
plans for redevelopment...
there were a couple surprise
rainshowers, thankfully we were only caught outside during one of
them...i hate rain...it's the worst kind of travel weather...
our last day in lviv we started by
checking out of the guesthouse (which consisted of leaving the keys
to our room on the table in the kitchen area) and using a map we'd
received from the tourist information centre to walk to the train
station...we stored our bags, and walked back to the centre of
town...we didn't do much that day, just hang out...the weather was
lovely, and watching people was a relaxing activity...the night train
that night took us back to kyiv, right on time...as usual, the work
day wasn't fun after having slept on the train, but it's always worth
it to get out of town for a few days...lviv is one of my favourite
places in ukraine...a sentiment shared by many...
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