weekend in ukraine

i thought i'd celebrate my new british passport by heading somewhere on the weekend that i can't get into with my aussie passport without a visa so i headed for the ukraine. last time i was there i only saw kyiv and had wanted to also travel to lviv so, since lviv is quite close to the polish border i thought this would be a good location.

the first lesson learnt is not to enter the ukraine in the car as the border crossing is SOOO slow. on the saturday morning it took about two and a half hours to finally get through. but once through it was worth it as it is a very pretty country (as is much of eastern europe) with the things that make these countries such special places.. horse and carts, little villages with wooden houses, people in traditional dress etc.

i got to lviv and it is a very nice city although it probably would have been helpful if i had a map a bit better than the one in my lonely planet book. eventually i found the hotel i'd planned to stay in and also found secure parking for the car and set out for a bit of sightseeing and some tucker. the food was very nice but the heavens decided to open and there was torrential rain for the best part of an hour. once the rain started to lighten off i headed out with umbrella and saw the sights whilst still managing to get quite wet... my cons won't ever be the same again!! as with many of the towns i've been to in this area of the world, the main sights are a town square, some old and huge churches and various fortifications. this is not to diminish the specialness (is that a word??) of these places as they are certainly worth visiting, just to point out that when the guide books make out as though they're unique, it's usually not quite the case.

anyhoo, the town itself is lovely and not at all what people would picture when they think of the ukraine. it is clean and the historic buildings appear to be in good condition. unlike the people of kyiv who i found to be quite rude and unhelpful, the people i came across in lviv were quite the opposite. i was only there for a short while but enjoyed it very much.. even with the rain!!

sunday morning i got up and did a bit more sightseeing before heading back towards the polish border. arriving at the border crossing i figured it may take a little while to get through but there was no way i expected it to take the 4 hours it ended up. i arrived just after 1pm and finally managed to get on my way just after 5pm. aaarrgghh!!!