Out west near the Polish border and a seven-hour drive and six-hour train ride from Kyiv, the country’s sixth largest city (pop. 718,000) was founded as such in 1250 (though the area had already been settled for at least 800 years), and has thus far remained unscathed by the war. Lviv has been called by some Ukraine’s prettiest city, with a fairytale, UNESCO World Heritage old town including lovely Jewish and Armenian quarters; a lively café/bar scene (check out the famous P’iana Vishna, the Drunken Cherry); and centered around a main square called Rynok (Market Square); climb the tower of the 19th-century city hall (if you can handle the 408 sometimes creaky steps) for fantastic views out over all of it.
Several top landmarks: The 18th-century baroque-roccoco Svyatovo Yura (St George’s) Cathedral; the Armenian Cathedral, dating back to the 14th century, with a gorgeously colorful interior that’s especially atmospheric, even eye popping; the grandiose, 14th-century Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (commonly known as the Latin Cathedral); the Lviv State Theater of Opera and Ballet, inaugurated in 1900 and which offers a guided tour as well as world-class performances if you’re here in season, generally fall and winter; and if you have time, the ruins of the Vysoky Zamok (High Castle), Lviv’s highest point, more impressive for its great views over the city (accessible through a pretty park).
There are also several good museums, the most significant of which is the Lviv National Museum, housing the National Gallery, with a large collection of art and artifacts from the 12th to early 20th centuries. There’s also a Museum of Ethnography and Crafts housed in a gorgeous palace; the “Prison on Lontskoho Street” Museum, documenting the grim Soviet past; and the Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life, out near Vysoky Zamok, one of Europe’s largest open-air museums of its kind, with some 150 buildings – the oldest from 1749 – brought in from all around the country.
Read more in my post Ukraine Tourism and the War - Plus a Look at its Aweome Allures for Visitors.
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