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The Carpathians

Clipping the country's southwest corner, the Carpathian arc has endowed Ukraine with a crinkled region of forested hills and fast-flowing rivers that feel a continent away from the flatness of the steppe. This is the land of the Hutsuls, whose colourful folk culture is laced through thin villages stretching languidly along wide valley floors. It's also rural Ukraine at its best, where tiered wooden churches dot hillsides, horse-drawn carts clip-clop along potholed roads, babushkas shoo geese, and marshrutka passengers cross themselves as they whizz past roadside chapels.

The 'Hutsulshchyna' may be Ukraine's epicentre of rural folk culture, but this is also a leading holiday spot. The local peaks have been a long-term hit with Ukrainian hikers and skiers; the Carpathian National Nature Park, the country's biggest, lies in this region; and within the park's boundaries rises Mt Hoverla – Ukraine's highest peak at 2061m. It's also home to Bukovel, Ukraine's glitziest ski resort.

Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout The Carpathians.

  • See

    Museum of Hutsul Folk Art

    This well-curated exhibition of Hutsul artefacts is probably the best of its kind in Ukraine. Decorated stove tiles and other ceramics, musical instruments, carved wooden tools, boxes, furniture, traditional and embroidered folk dress, woven wall hangings and an interesting collection of traditional Hutsul axes fill the museum's grand neoclassical home, which started life in the dying days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a Ukrainian cultural institute. Most of the wall texts have been translated into sound English but employing a guide (ask at the town's guesthouses) puts a considerable amount of meat on the exhibition's bones.

  • See

    Pysanky Museum

    Kolomyya's most eye-catching attraction is a monster concrete Easter egg, which sits rather self-consciously on the town's main square. Inside in an adjoining building you'll discover a museum dedicated to the traditional art of egg decorating, with examples from across Ukraine as well as Romania, the Czech Republic and as far afield as India, China and Canada. Kolomyya's most photographed building also houses eggs signed by famous Ukrainians and a pysanka dating from 16th-century Lviv.

  • See

    Carpathian Biosphere Reserve

    Declared a Unesco Biosphere Reserve in 1992, this protected area is made up of six separate locations, four of which can be found around Rakhiv. Some 90% of the reserve is made up of virgin forest, home to rare flora and fauna. About 5km southwest of Rakhiv the main road leads to the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve headquarters, which isn't so much of interest for itself as for what's surrounding it.

  • See

    Museum of Mountain Ecology

    This old-school museum stands on the hill behind the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve headquarters building. The exhibition is surprisingly informative, rich and colourful as well as slightly kitsch, so in between sniggers at the odd moth-bitten, taxidermied sheep, you'll learn a bit from the handy Carpathian Mountains relief map, and the dioramas of forest landscapes and Hutsul festivals. Not always open when it should be, so call ahead before setting off from Rakhiv.

  • See

    Geographical Centre of Europe

    Fifteen kilometres southwest of Rakhiv lies what Ukraine contends is Europe's geographical centre, just before the village of Dilove. Ukraine is not the only country to declare itself the continent's centre: Germany, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia have all staked rival claims. Furthermore, Austrian experts claim the pillar erected by Austro-Hungarian geographers in 1887, in what is now back-country Ukraine, was never intended to mark Europe's middle; its Latin inscription was mistranslated. None of this has dented official Ukrainian aspirations to the honour, although some locals are more sceptical. A Soviet-era spire joined the Austro-Hungarian pillar at the 'geographical centre of Europe' in the 1980s – a restaurant complex and souvenir stalls are more recent additions.