Showing 1-23 of 23 results
-
Apteka Museum
The Apteka Museum is located inside a still-functioning pharmacy dating from 1735. Entrance into the eerie pidval (basement) is by request only. You can buy a bottle of iron-rich medicinal wine, if you can bear the temporary tooth discolouration. Ask for ' vino '.
-
B'nai B'rith Leopolis Jewish Cultural Centre
Around the corner from the Jewish Hospital is the B'nai B'rith Leopolis Jewish Cultural Centre, which can arrange tours of Jewish Lviv. Writer Sholem Aleichem lived not far away, at Kotlyarska 1, in 1906. There's a plaque ( M00C9) to Aleichem on the side of that building. South of here, on vul Nalyvayka, a few old Yiddish shop signs remain.
Read more about B'nai B'rith Leopolis Jewish Cultural Centre
-
Beis Aharon V'Yisrael Synagogue
Artefacts of Lviv's Jewish heritage are scattered around various museums in the old town. There's a small Holocaust exhibit in the Lviv History Museum branch at pl Rynok 6, while the Museum of Religious History attached to the Dominican Cathedral has a collection of Jewish relics. Lviv's only functioning synagogue is the attractive Beis Aharon V'Yisrael Synagogue, built in 1924.
-
Bernardine Church and Monastery
Lviv's most stunning baroque interior belongs to the 17th-century Bernardine Church and Monastery now the Greek Catholic Church of St Andrew. The highlight is the long ceiling covered in recently restored frescoes. Sunday masses spill out into the street, filling the surrounding square with song. Walking from here back to pr Svobody, you'll pass pl Halytska and the statue of Prince Danylo Halytsky, Lviv's founder.
-
Birthplace of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Opposite the Pototsky Palace is the birthplace of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch , the world's original 'masochist'. The author of Venus in Furs came into the world here in 1835, although he spent most of his subsequent 60 years begging to be whipped in Austria, Germany and Italy.
-
Boyim Chapel
A highlight of Ploshchka rynok is the Boyim Chapel, just off the square's southwestern corner. The burial chapel (1617) of a Hungarian merchant family, its blackened façade is covered in magnificent carvings, including portraits of family patriarchs above the door. Atop the cupola is an unusual sculpture of Christ sitting with his head in one hand.
-
Church of St Pyatnytsa
The small Church of St Pyatnytsa has a renowned 17th-century wooden iconostasis.
-
Dormition Church
The Ukrainian Orthodox Dormition Church is easily distinguished by the 65m, triple-tiered Kornyakt bell tower rising beside it. The tower was named after its Greek benefactor, a merchant who was also the original owner of Kornyakt House on pl Rynok. It's well worth going inside to see the beautiful interior of the church, accessible through the gate to the right of the tower. It's only open during daily services. Attached to the church is the diminutive Three Saints Chapel.
-
Golden Rose Synagogue
The late-16th century Golden Rose Synagogue stood at the heart of the inner district before the Nazis blew it up in 1941. Archaeologists were hard at work excavating the fenced-off site when we visited. The local Jewish community hopes to rebuild the synagogue in the near future. Another synagogue once stood in the decrepit open lot directly across vul Staroyevreyska.
-
High Castle
Visiting the High Castle (Vysoky Zamok) on Castle Hill (Zamkova Hora) is a quintessential Lviv experience. The 14th-century ruined stone fort at the summit was Lviv's birthplace and offers the best vantage point of the modern city. Good times to visit are at sunset and in winter, when there are no leaves obstructing the view. Newlyweds like to pop the cork on a bottle of champagne here, while enterprising locals rent binoculars and sell souvenirs.
-
Advertisement
-
Holocaust memorial
About 500m north of the Theatre of Opera and Ballet on pr Chornovola is the Holocaust memorial, a vaguely cubist statue of a tormented figure looking skyward. The Lviv ghetto began here after most of the city's Jews were killed or deported to Belzec in the 'Great Action' of August 1942. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal was the most famous resident of the ghetto, which was liquidated in June 1943.
-
Janowska concentration camp
A 15-minute walk west of the cemetery are a plaque and a billboard marking the spot of the Janowska concentration camp, now a prison. About 200m further west on vul Tarasa Shevchenka is Kleparivska train station, the last stop before Belzec on the Nazi death train. A plaque commemorates the 500,000 doomed Galician Jews who passed through here.
-
Jewish Hospital
In the outer district, you'll find the Jewish Hospital, one of Lviv's architectural highlights. From afar this Moorish, dome-topped building looks like a mosque, but up close Jewish motifs are evident in the striking, eclectic façade. Krakivsky Market, right behind the hospital, was a Jewish cemetery in medieval times.
-
Lviv Art Gallery
Its buildings are Lviv's strong point, rather than its museums, but it's worth popping your head into one or two of them. The best is the Lviv Art Gallery, which has two wings - one in the lavish Pototsky Palace, the other around the corner on vul Stefanyka. The former houses an impressive collection of European art from the 14th to 18th centuries, including works by Rubens, Bruegel, Goya and Caravaggio. The art is all on the second floor. A tour of the palace's empty but striking ground floor costs an extra 5uah. The wing on vul Stefanyka contains 19th and early 20th-century art, most of it Polish and Russian.
-
Lviv History Museum
The Lviv History Museum is split into three dotted around pl Rynok. The best part of this museum is at No 6. Here you can enjoy the Italian-Renaissance inner courtyard and slide around the exquisitely decorated interior. It was also here on 22 December 1686 that Poland and Russia signed the treaty that partitioned Ukraine. No 4 covers 19th- and 20th-century history, including two floors dedicated to the Ukrainian nationalist movement. No 24 expounds on the city's earlier history.
-
Lvivske Museum of Beer and Brewing
The oldest still-functioning brewery in Europe turns 300 in 2015, and a tasting tour through the mainly underground facilities is well worth the price of admission. One old storage vault has been turned into a unique beer hall.
-
Lychakivsky Cemetery
Don't even think of leaving town until you've seen the Lychakivsky Cemetery, even though it is a short journey from the centre. This is the Père Lachaise of Eastern Europe. With the same sort of overgrown grounds and Gothic aura as the famous Parisian necropolis, Lychakivsky is the final resting place for more than 400,000 people.
-
Museum of Ethnography, Arts and Crafts
The Museum of Ethnography, Arts and Crafts has exhibits of furniture, clothing, woodcarvings, ceramics and farming implements that give a basic introduction to Carpathian life. However, the Hutsul folk-art museum in Kolomyya is superior.
-
Museum of Folk Architecture and Life
The open-air Museum of Folk Architecture and Life displays different regional styles of farmsteads, windmills, churches and schools. It doesn't hold a candle to Kyiv's Pyrohovo Museum, but it's worth checking out if you're not heading to Kyiv. To get to the museum, take tram 7 or 2 from vul Pidvalna up vul Lychakivska and get off at the corner of vul Mechnykova. From the stop walk ten minutes north on vul Krupyarska, following the signs.
-
Museum of Religious History
Attached to the Dominican Cathedral and Monastery and to the left of the entrance is the Museum of Religious History, which was an atheist museum in Soviet times.
-
Advertisement
-
Ploshcha Rynok
This 16th-century market square lies at the heart of Lviv's rich heritage. A 19th-century town hall (ratusha) stands in the middle of the plaza, with fountains featuring Greek gods on each of its corners. You can climb the neo-Renaissance tower but the 40-odd buildings around the square's perimeter are more interesting.
-
Roman Catholic Cathedral
Opposite the Boyim Chapel, on pl Katedralna stands the working Roman Catholic Cathedral (1370-1480). Here you can see a cannonball hanging by a chain off the cathedral's corner, which miraculously failed to penetrate its walls during a historic battle. If you walk around the cathedral, you'll see a relief of Pope John Paul II on the other side, erected to commemorate his visit to Lviv in 2001.
-
Transfiguration Church
The tall copper-domed church just west of the Armenian Cathedral is the late-17th-century Transfiguration Church, the first church in the city to revert to Greek Catholicism after Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Showing 1-23 of 23 results
