A Day in Lviv

We spent Friday in L'viv in Western Ukraine not all that far from the Polish border. We came by fast train from Kyiv on Thursday night. The train takes five hours with speeds up to 160 km/h but there were delays last night so we were an hour late. We had let our accommodation know that we would be arriving about 11 pm but it ended up being almost midnight before we arrived at the hostel.  Fortunately someone was still awake to let us in.  Today we have explored the old part of L'viv.  Charise commented that Kyiv is like Sydney and L'viv is like Brisbane.  There is less hustle here and it is perhaps more western. Not that Kyiv feels eastern just a bit more different from home.  We saw many beautiful sights. We climbed to L'viv's 'Mount Cootha' , went to an historical museum  and saw lots of other things.  I think I will let a picture say a thousand words. The train leaves in the morning at 5.50am and we are walking to the station so we plan to rise at 4.00am to be sure of everything so an early night is called for.

This is the main railway station in Kyiv. It is a magnificent building.  You can see the vaulted ceilings and the murals on the walls. You can pick out Charise and me in about the centre of the picture. I have a blue back at my feet.  This is a time when the station was fairly empty. 

This a view from our hostel room in L'viv. if you were on the far balcony and looked back at our room the picture would look the same. 

Charise is standing at the end of the passage way we went down to reach our hostel.  The street outside the building was completely closed because they were taking up the cobblestones and appeared to be replacing them with new ones. This fact did not deter either pedestrians or cars who simply walked or drove around the work site and went on their way or parked their car and left.

 

As I have said Ukraine is place for enormous statues.  This is one of Ivan Franko a famous Ukrainian writer. Bill wrote an extended assignment on him so it is special to have this photo.  It is out in front of the Ivan Franko University.

Just to show the beautiful parks and huge trees. When you are high up and overlook L'viv you can see their policy of putting a ring of parks around the city to make for green space.

This statue is of Taras Shevchenko.  He is Ukraine's most noted writer.  This was erected after the collapse of the Soviet Union and a lot of the money needed was provided by Ukrainians living abroad.

The Opera House in L'viv.  It was a fairly hot day when we were there - about 33 degrees, so later in the day we saw people standing in the water of the fountain. When the Opera House was built it was decided by the architect that it be interesting to build it over a small river which flowed there.  So they did.  Apparently the building began to subside as soon as it was finished, but it soon went no further.  The tourist information says the only ill effect of the subsidence is sink holes near the building which catch out unwary tourists.

I don't know how recently these seats were put in this street making it into a mall, but motor-bikes were still happy to use it as a thoroughfare.

The view of the old town from their version of "Mount Cootha"

These two photos show the way up to lookout over L'viv. There were over two hundred steps and then a reasonably long steep walk  from the top of them.

A typical street scene in the old town part of L'viv. 

This is very usual in both Kyiv and L'viv to have flower boxes on the footpath.  Perhaps not quite as many as in this spot.  The flowers will often be petunias or geraniums but these were begonias.

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This was about 7.30 pm.  It is light here at present till about 9.00-9.30.  There was a whole row of older men playing chess and as you can see they could draw a crowd.  Many of them were using timers for their moves.


I had to add to this blog. We left our hostel  at about 4.15 am on Saturday morning.  and walked for about thirty minutes to the station. We found out two things   within a few minutes. One is that there is almost nil street lighting in L'viv,and the other is that  it is completely dark at 4.15 am. The next thing is, that you know from the last week you have spent in Ukraine,  that the footpaths can be very problematic.  Many of the footpaths in L'viv are cobblestones and uneven. Also there are often broken cobbles and completely missing ones.  So we made our way alone, for the most part, through the dark early morning  of L'viv.  We made it without incident but I can tell you my toes were very concerned the whole way. .

By this time we arrived at the station and it was much brighter and there were lots of people around, but it gives you an idea of how it was.