I was quite shocked on my way home at the sight of a significant number of people covering their mouth and nose with scarves and masks. Swine flu has been declared an epidemic in Ukraine, because one person died. 220 miles away. PANIC!! Remember that this is a country that thinks standing next to an open window will harm you. From what I've read, masks do nothing to stop you getting flu, and may even be counter-productive because it gives wearers false confidence and panics everyone else. It's true: I felt genuinely ill just seeing them. I'm not worried about this whole situation, as the whole swine flu thing is nonsensical hyperbole. This happens every bloody year, why should this year be the year that 10 million die? Rant over.

Anyway, time for Lviv part two. I'm glad I've bothered to get up to this point, because I have my recent adventures in Kyiv to document, too. I thought I'd do a little thing about the political situation in Ukraine, too, given that the presidential elections are coming soon. Or, maybe I won't. Maybe nobody cares. Also, it looks like I'll have a super-fast trip to another country very soon, but more details about that when it happens.

So, onto Lviv. Our hotel was very nice for a reasonable price, and it included a straightforward breakfast of eggs and bread and stuff. So, with this start to our day, we set off on our journey around Lviv again. Unfortunately, the weather started bad - as it had been the previous night - and got worse as the day continued.

To make matters worse, as well as my girlfriend losing her phone the day before, she'd accidentally set her camera to take pictures on the highest quality setting - and by 'quality' I mean megapixels. The pictures look no better, but they take up three times more space. So, her card was full. And I think the battery was perhaps finished too. Whoops.



So, for most of these pictures, she took charge. Which is why there's a picture of a tree here, because she likes trees.










I think the reason she likes Lviv is because of the 'atmosphere' that the old buildings and such provide.










This illustrates quite clearly the inclement weather.








Mmm, lovely. We spent a while here, taking more pictures.








But they all look like this. Bleak.








Shame this door's out of focus. Let's step inside.











She wouldn't stop going into these old buildings with rickety staircases.







More rubble that constitutes the streets of Lviv.











Agh, scary dog!








This can't be normal...








Beret.











Kyiv doesn't look like this. Mostly.








Not very Soviet.








She liked this building so much...











...she took a closer look at the flowers.








Trams are quite common here, much more than Kyiv, mainly because they don't have a Metro system, I guess.










Monument time. This is a monument to the people who suffered during WW2: Ukrainians, Poles, and (cough) Jews. Notice how the Jew bit is all dark, wonder why... Nobody likes them, do they?






The main part of the monument. Cool.








And here's the detail mentioned before, but in English.








Somebody's having a wedding. Woo. After this, we journeyed north to look through the less glamorous side of Lviv, and sadly took no pictures (you ain't missing much, trust me). We circled around and ended up back in the centre and had coffee.





By this point the rain started to fall pretty badly, and walking around the city became less fun as our shoes slowly filled with water. This is Mr Ivan Franko.






And here he is up close. I didn't care about the rain: I had a brolly, and I wasn't gonna miss such a big, stylish Soviet monument.










This is just to illustrate the weather.








After this we went and sat in several cafés, which wasn't really what we wanted, but we couldn't think what to do in such nasty weather. Eventually I discovered that waxwork exhibit that I showed you in Zhytomyr (go back and find the pics). It's a travelling exhibit, you see. That cheered us up a bit, but the weekend kind of ended on a downer, as the weather stopped us really enjoying the city at its best.

I'm told Lviv is 'the London of Ukraine' because it always rains, so maybe we weren't unlucky, exactly. Nevertheless, I think that on the whole it was worth going, but perhaps having been to so many wonderful cities around Europe has made me hard to impress. I still love travelling, anyway.

So, that's all my travels up to now. Aside from my aforementioned upcoming foreign excursion, I just have my local stuff to clear out. I'll do that when I get round to it, which may be very soon. Hopefully I won't die from the lurgy before my next post.

Here we go: Lviv. There are an awful lot of pics, so I'll do the first day now, then the shorter second day later.

On the evening of Friday 9th October, my girlfriend and I caught a train bound for the west. It was the first time I'd been on a Ukrainian train, and I expected it to be noisy and uncomfortable, and thus difficult to sleep. This was a night train, after all, as the journey takes between 6 and 10 hours (night trains obviously are at the slower end of that, probably because you don't care about distance when you're sleeping, and if they went too fast you might wake up).

It was actually a very nice train - maybe we got lucky. There are different types of tickets for trains. The one we got put us in a cabin of four people: us two, plus another young couple. This is a little more expensive than the main alternative: loads of people in an open carriage, each with their own bed. It's probably the best option if you're travelling alone, I suppose, but I imagine it's not easy to sleep, a bit like some hostels I've been in. Except, they move.

As this photo suggests, we arrived at Lviv train station very early on the Saturday. It was still pretty dark outside, and I had no map. I had no idea where we were in the city, but we grabbed the tram with all the other people who got the night train. Once in central Lviv, everything was closed. Well, except McDonald's, which was packed.



We got breakfast at McDonald's (which took a while with all the people asking for coffee). After that, it was time to get to the hotel and figure things out. I took some pics on the way, too. Traffic's a bit quieter than Kyiv.





This is the opera house, I think. We didn't go inside.








This is just a square. Nothing special, but it gives you a bit of flavour for the town, I suppose.







There was a ton of building work going on with the roads at the time. Here's a dog, sitting on some stuff.







Our hotel was lovely. It was in this little courtyard (behind the camera).







Ah, beautiful Lviv. Like I said, roadworks.








Er, a LOT of roadworks.








This is a nice building. Lviv was one of the biggest cities that wasn't too affected by the Soviet regime. They were never too fond of the Soviets, either. I guess being at the arse end of the Soviet empire meant they felt closer to Europe. It used to be part of Poland, amongst other places.




"Hotel Kyiv". My girlfriend said she stayed there, partly because it's messed up. Charming.







Back to the opera. It was Ukraine v England that evening, so there was a Fan Zone (sponsored by beer maker Chernihivske) in this square.






Like I said...








National Museum. Didn't go in here, either, which was a shame.








I think this is some kind of church or something. Girlfriend was disappointed that they'd renovated it (she's been here before).










And now, the central square. Similar to Krakow or Prague, I suppose, but the building in the middle is a bit bigger and more permanent than in the other two. This is one of four (I think there are four) statues based on Greek legends (I think...).





Here's the aforementioned building. We'd go up where the flag is later.











The same building from the side.








Church.











Interesting monument. The missus hates it.








See if you can find the dog.








A nice little alcove which houses a lovely café. Unfortunately, it was at this point when my girlfriend discovered she'd lost her phone. We never recovered it. That put a bit of a downer on proceedings.





I see a lot of conkers, but other than that I don't really understand what the point of this is.







After going through an archway to see a church, we encountered this courtyard. Lots of 'character' here.







And this is the church I just mentioned. Rather small.











Little book market. Amusingly the man in the centre had a road atlas for Britain from a couple of years ago. He explained to us what it was, but I kinda figured it out by myself.






Next to the book market, a curious little bunch of ruins. Your guess is as good as mine.







Monument to somebody. I don't know why I take pictures of these things. Maybe Wikipedia can use them.







Next to the central square. There's certainly a Prague/Krakow feel to this place, very different to Kyiv.







So, time to climb the tower in the square. It was a long and tiring climb up many steps, but we got to see this fascinating clock mechanism.






And lo, another high place to add to my collection.








TV tower. We could've visited it, but it's up a big hill... and the weather got worse on Sunday.







Look, a horse!








You can see a square in the distance.








We were shocked by a loud bell that went off at some point. This is the culprit. Very loud.







After climbing down the stairs, it was after 5pm, so things were closing. We encountered another building with real 'character'.







And what appear to be more ruins.








Don't think we went in this church here.











The missus was fascinated by this little thing, so I took a pic of it.








'King Danilo', or so it says. Don't know who he is, of course. C'mon, I'd be letting you down if I actually knew something about a monument, right?






It appears to be a café in a coach. Strange. But nice.








We were in search of a restaurant. Not a café with some food, not McDonald's, but a restaurant. It was almost impossible to find such a thing. I took a picture of this square while we searched. Eventually we found a lovely restaurant that was expensive for Lviv, but reasonable for Kyiv. So, I was satisfied. Great food, too.




And so, the night drew in, and the crowds arrived in the rain for Ukraine v England.







My phone is not good at all at night, but I figured I had to show you something of what happened there.







There were a lot of people.








We, on the other hand, sat under cover to squint at a far away TV along with quite a few others, as you see here. For those who don't know, Ukraine won, so everyone was happy. England had already qualified, so I didn't really mind that much.





Okay, that's enough. We went to bed after the match, as it had been a long day. I'll get back to you with Day 2 of our Lviv trip in due course.