Things to do in Lviv
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Lychakivske Cemetery
Don’t even think of leaving town until you’ve seen the Lychakivske Cemetery; it is only 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. Eagle eyes can try to spot the graves of revered nationalist poet Ivan Franko, Soviet gymnastics legend Viktor Chukarin, early 20th-century opera star Solomiya Krushelnytska, and some 2000 Poles who died fighting Ukrainians and Bolsheviks from 1918 to 1920. Ultimately you needn’t recognise a single soul to be moved by the mournful photos of loved ones, ornate tombstones and floral tributes.
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Armenian Cathedral
By some accounts, Lviv has more than 80 churches and it’s all too easy to overdose on ornate interiors and golden iconostases, but one church you should not miss is the elegant 1363 Armenian Cathedral. The placid cathedral courtyard is a maze of arched passageways and squat buildings festooned with intricate Caucasian detail. Stepping into the courtyard feels like stepping into another era. Quaint, cobbled vul Virmenska was the heart of the old Armenian (‘Virmenska’ in Ukrainian) quarter.
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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.
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Outdoor Arts and Crafts Market
This large market sells rugs, embroidered blouses, wooden pysanky (patterned eggs), woodcrafts and lots of everyday knick-knacks.
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Lviv History Museum
The Lviv History Museum is split into three collections 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 in cloth slippers on the woodcut parquetry floor made from 14 kinds of hardwood. 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. The highlight is an enormous painting depicting the old walled city of Lviv in the 18th century. Pr S…
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St George’s Cathedral
On a hilltop beyond Ivan Franko Park stands St George’s Cathedral. This is the historic and sacred centre of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, which was handed back after 44 years of compulsory Orthodox control. Constructed in 1774–90, this yellow building is pleasant enough, especially since a refurbishment for the pope’s 2001 visit. However, it’s perhaps not as striking as some of Lviv’s less important churches. For many, the most memorable element will be the 3D icon of Christ near the far right corner, if looking from the door. It presents Christ’s face from one angle, and the image from the shroud of Turin from another.
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Boyim Chapel
A highlight of Ploshcha Rynok is the Boyim Chapel just off the square’s southwest corner on pl Katedralna (Cathedral Sq). The blackened façade of the burial chapel (1617) of Hungarian merchant Georgi Boyim and his family is covered in magnificent if somewhat morbid carvings. Atop the cupola is an unusual sculpture of Christ sitting with his head in one hand, pondering his sorrows. The interior is dizzying, featuring biblical reliefs with cameo appearances by members of the Boyim family. There are more images of the family patriarchs on the exterior above the door and on the wall flanking vul Halytska.
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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.
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Amadeus
The refined interior, peaceful music and patio perfectly placed in the shadow of three churches are reason enough to plop down in one of Amadeus’ stylish wicker chairs. But it’s the food that puts it on another level. The menu leans toward fancy European fare like fondue and risotto, but there are stuffed baked potatoes (10 to 20uah) and varenyky (dumplings) on offer for the price-conscious hryvnia hoarders. The pizza-sized omelettes are legendary, and the surf-and-turf ‘gypsy shashlyk ’ is quite simply the best shashlyk we’ve ever tasted.
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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, at 8am and 6pm. Attached to the church is the diminutive Three Saints Chapel.
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Pototsky Palace
The Lviv Art Gallery 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.
reviewed
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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.
The church's exterior is Gothic while the heavily gilded interior, one of the city's most ornate, has a more baroque feel.
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Kupol
It’s designed to feel like stepping back in time – to 1938 in particular, ‘the year before civilisation ended’ (ie before the Soviets rolled in). How well this former mansion and arts salon recreates that specific year is moot, but, goodness, is the overall effect winning. The olde-worlde chintzy interior is lined with framed letters, ocean-liner ads, antique cutlery, hampers and other memorabilia. The Polish-Austrian-Ukrainian food is delicious and beautifully garnished.
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Dzyha
This café-cum-art gallery in the shadow of the Dominican Cathedral has a relaxed vibe. It’s particularly popular with bohemian, alternative types, but seems to attract pretty much everyone, really. If it’s full there are other attractive options for a nibble or a cuppa joe nearby on postcard-worthy vul Virmenska. If you just can’t get enough, Dzyha has also been writing its vibe large at the ethnic music festival Pidkamin (pidkamin.ridne.net), south of Pochayiv.
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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.
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Robert Doms Beer House
This fantastic, utterly unique beer hall is located three stories underground in a centuries-old beer-storage vault once used by the neighbouring Lvivske brewery. It’s named after the brewery’s founder and features fresh Lvivske served in litre steins (12uah), plus German food and nightly live music in one of the vault’s four chambers. Another chamber has a mammoth TV screen for sports viewing.
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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.
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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.
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Solomiya Krushelnytska Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet
For an evening of high culture, and to enjoy the ornate building, take in a performance at the Solomiya Krushelnytska Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet. For some local colour catch a performance of Zaporozhets za Dunae, which runs once or twice a month. The theatre shuts down for most of July and August.
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Panorama
The Opera Hotel’s rooftop restaurant has quality food and is high on terms of ambience. The main selling point is the view – the goblins adorning the roof of the opera house stare right at you while you chew your veal cutlet or roast duck. The heavenly couches and groovy music are perfect for chillin’.
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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.
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National Museum
Most of the National Museum is dedicated to Ukrainian art of the 12th to 20th centuries. The old religious icons and medieval books are quite extraordinary if you’re a fan. The temporary exhibitions by local artists are of a more variable quality. Taras Shevchenko’s moustachioed death mask is also here.
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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 ’.
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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.
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Pid Synoyu Plyashkoyu
With its nostalgia for the Polish-Austrian past and its dark interior, this tiny café at the back of a courtyard has a cosy, secretive atmosphere. It serves sandwiches and fondues, as well as wine and coffee with pepper. It’s hard to find; look for the blue bottle.
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