Day 4 - Downtown Lviv

After the exciting night train, we arrived in Lviv at 6:00. We waited around for a while as we tried to figure out if our friend Myroslava's brother was coming to pick us up or not (there was some confusion with late-night text messages), but we eventually ended up walking into town. Here's the train station in the early morning sun. The writing in Cyrillic on the building says the name of the city.
The walk into town was pleasant, but it was already clear by 7:00 that it was going to be a really hot day. We went to our hotel but it was too early to check in, but we were able to leave our luggage at least. From there we headed to a park across the street in the middle of a central boulevard, where we had a leisurely breakfast on a park bench while Béla played with stacking blocks and we watched the people heading to work.

We were right next to a statue of Jesus, around which an old woman was expending lots of energy tending to the flowers, and just a bit further down was a statue of Mary. I couldn't believe how many people, some quite young, stopped on their morning commute to pray for a few minutes before the statues. I really don't think I've seen such public displays of devotion in a Christian community before.

Our friend Myroslava (who works at the same place as me, and who grew up in Lviv before immigrating to Canada when she was a young teen) explained that the statue of Mary had been removed by the Soviets, and the church in general was really repressed. Because this region of western Ukraine is the most anti-Russian of all, they flocked back to the church after independence as a way of demonstrating their freedom. It's also a region where everyone speaks Ukrainian, rather than a mix of Ukrainian and Russian (as in Kiev) or only Russian (as in Crimea, in southern Ukraine).

Further up the same square is a statue of Taras Shevchenko, a very famous Urkainian poet who is also featured on the 100 hryvnia bank note.
And still further up the square is the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, which is featured on the 20 hryvnia note. We went on a tour of it the next day, but I'll get back to that.
The first day in Lviv we spent a lot of time wandering around, checking out various churches. This one impressed me in particular with the amount of embroidery! Look at the sashes around all the paintings...
...and a little closer...
...and a little closer...
...and closer still! That's a lot of stitches!
We toured the central market square...


...and visited an outdoor used book market, which is held around the base of a statue of Federov, who was instrumental in introducing the printing press to eastern Slavonic languages, and who lived in Lviv in the 16th century. (A good place for a book market, isn't it?) Jeremi was impressed with his style, and was wishing that he had a long apron too.
One of the many picturesque buildings around town...
Here's one of the four fountains that are found in the corners of the bustling town square.
We had a lovely lunch while Béla slept, enjoying the view of the Bohemian Chapel behind him.
After lunch we had a bit of a nap to recover from our night of customs, and to get away from the heat a little. In the late afternoon we met up with Taras, Myroslava's brother, who lives in Lviv, and his girlfriend Yuda. They took us around to see some of the sights of the city, such as this little art gallery/café, with a cool ladder going somewhere...
We went out for desserts and coffee, and then later went for supper at a theme restaurant, which was set up to be like a resistance camp of partisans against the Russians during the war, with country-style food, like what they'd have in the camps, and a guard at the door in an antique uniform (with an antique weapon) checking for Russians and asking for the password (which was something like death to Russians). This all really underlined the fact that we were in Western Ukraine. Here we are, enjoying our meal.
Look at the size of that kolbasa! And it was sooo delicious. This was also the first place where we tried salo, a Ukrainian specialty of seasoned slices of pork fat. It sounds a bit gross, but was really surprisingly delicious, and went incredibly well with its garnish of chunks of raw garlic. Yum!
Here's the basement of the restaurant, which had live music as well. The atmosphere here was a bit more lively, but they asked for us to sit elsewhere so that Béla wasn't exposed to cigarette smoke, which I thought was really thoughtful.
Afterward we went for a walk through the city together, stopping to enjoy the romantic views around the fountain in front of the opera house. At this point it even started to rain a little, which continued into the next day, providing the one cool and cloudy day of our vacation. We'll tell you more about the next day in Lviv in the next post...