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Ukraine, 30 days, 3rd trip

Since this was our third trip to Ukraine I'll be brief. We traveled by marshrutkas for the entire trip. I also had dental work done in Lviv. We began in that city again then to Ternopil to Khmelnitsky, to Kamianets-Podilsky, to Chernivsti, to Kolomiyia, to Ivano-Frankivsk and back to Lviv. This trip makes three and a half months in western Ukraine. Some of these cities have been on our earlier travels. If anyone has specific questions please send me a Personal Message because I won't be reponding to any comments on this site. We are 77 and 70, no insurance, convertible carry-on only, do our own planning, avoid STEP like the plague, and enjoy making our own way like it was candy. Present guidebooks on Ukraine are out of date in some respects, but this always happens. Western Ukraine is changing fast. We saw and met Polish and French tourists in several places. Oriental tourists are also starting to show up.

As this will probably be my last post on this site I have a few other things to discuss that have emerged. TSA is an abomination as far as the lack of professionalism of some of its people, its gaudy uniforms and silly badges. TSA in Seattle has always been a sore point for me. Airport security everywhere is getting tighter. I lost my Slip-N-Snip scissors coming out of Ukraine this time after crossing the border with them five times before. I got a secondary check in Schiphol. I got yelled at in Seattle for not taking off my shoes although I am over 75. I yelled back.

The fun of traveling has departed me. We have been lucky to travel quite a lot in Europe, Philippines, India, me to Tibet and I have been able to see the travel world change, not to my liking. Air travel is a real pain. Security is a real pain. As I age journeys are getting more difficult, physically. We are planning maybe one more trip to Ukraine for our 50th in two years, a cruise up or down the Dniepr River. We have been to Kyiv and Odessa and would like to visit them one last time. Dobry den.

Posted by
17 posts

Sounds interesting! My sister had a plan to visit Ukraine. She also mentioned Lviv but we were not sure is it worth to go there. do not get me wrong we know only about Kyiv. May I ask you to tell your opinion about Lviv, please?

Posted by
8 posts

i spent a week in Kiev, I was not disappointed. We stayed in a very acceptable B&B operated by a church on the outskirts of the city, but we caught buses and the metro with only a short walk. Because it was summer, we had been led to think there was little opera, symphony, ballet...but we attended all three. At a children's theater, I especially enjoyed discovering a rare production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" which includes the famous 'Flight of the Bumble Bee', an aria, not a dance. I was was profoundly moved by a visit to the ravine park, where thousands of WWII victims are buried, as memorialized by the poem Babi Yar. Although reconstructed, the Great Gate (immortalized by Mussorgsky) is remarkable. There is also a very instructive 'village' of collected agricultural structures, but it is quite a walk to see all of it. Do not expect much food available at the 'village.' We ended up enjoying lard smears on great dark bread.