Eastern Europe - Lviv. Ukraine

Email No 26 – Lviv – Ukraine

The pictures:

A Saturday wedding.

Statue of famous painter. (A finger painter?)

After an overnite trip I arrived in Lviv’ Main train Station early in the morning. A street car ride took me to the City Hall and Lviv Main Square where I attempted to find the location of the hostel. The door to the building, with the apparent right address, was shut and there was no outside evidence that this was the right place.

There seem to be a trend in Ukraine to located the hostels on one floor of large apartment/office buildings (this will be the third one out of three).

A came back a little late to find the outside door open and I found the hostel’s floor.

Nobody answered the door’s bell nor my persistent knocking. I want to an office on the next floor to confirm I was in he right place. They confirmed and even called the owner. She told me that she could not give me the room as it had already been booked by someone else !!?

I told her that I received a no. that confirmed my booking. She blamed the booking site (Hostelworld) for not updating the info. I know this is a lie because the web site gets a confirmation directly from the owner before giving confirmation. At this point I could only think of finding another place and sending a strong message to the web site.

Referring to my guide, I walked to the nearby George Hotel, where I was told they could book me for only one night? I decided to take that and they sent me to Hotel Kiev (the largest in Lviv).

This place is a definitely left-over from the communist time. An ugly concrete building with an interior to match. There are several receptionists hidden behind a glass wall, and you deal with them thru a tiny window. I walked out and went back to the George Hotel where the (obviously) efficient receptionist had succeeded in giving me three nites by doing a bunch of rooms rearranging.

The George Hotel used to be a “Grand Hotel” years ago, and is today one of the best value for the price. I have a large room with TV but no private toilet or bathroom. (I do not care).

A very abundant and nice breakfast is included, and they have a restaurant that serves good food at a reasonable price. The hotel is being updated completely and I suspect they will get back to being a truly “Grand Hotel” with price to match.

This is one of the worst time to find accommodations in Ukraine as this is “vacation time” and many people are travelling.

Lviv is a pleasant city with wide boulevard with many outdoor cafes, some worthwhile sights and ,of course, many churches.

I am sure that the churches here are spiritually equal to the ones in Kiev but they are definitely not as good from a photographic point of view.

I went to the train station to by a ticket to Lublin in Poland. After trying several window I was directed to window no 2, where I was told to go to another part of the station to window 20.

At window 20 the woman told me that they could not sell me a ticket because they did not have information on seat availability. To make a long story short, I went back to the station the day before my planned departure, went to window 20, was told I should go to window 2.

I had made a decision that I would take book any seat available to a train going either to Lublin, Warsaw, or Krakow. I had all of this carfully stated on a sheet of paper written by the friendly receptionist at the hotel.(I found out later that is the same no 51 train that goes to all three of those cities!).

Back to the train station (departure day minus one). Back to window 2 who sent me to window 20. Who gave a call to window 2 and sent me back there again.

The woman was waiting for me and said she could write only a ticket to Krakow right now. A second class ticket for tonite, or a more expensive first class ticket for the next morning.

I picked the next morning (50 euros). It took the woman 25 minutes to write and print the ticket.

She looked up the computer, several ledgers, she punched numbers in a calculator, she looked-up a book full of timetables, and then she repeated the same process.

I was so impressed with her efforts that I gave her a tip. She was astonished, she kept asking, for me? for me? And said yes, yes! This is probably the first time she has ever got a tip from a customer.

With tickets in hand I was finally believing that I would be able to go to Poland !

I was in a 2-bed compartment that I shared with a woman from Poland on vacation from Toronto where she attends a University.

When I figured that we where about 30 minutes away from Krakow I prepared myself to leave the train, the woman advised me that Poland was one hour later than Ukraine !

Next Krakow.