After over 40 years, having visited 49 European capital cities, written 42 blog posts during a period of around 18 months, what have I learned? Well, in no particular order:. Thank you to those of you who have commented on my blog posts or have told me you enjoy reading them โ or have argued with me about some of my findings!
We spent three nights in Kiev in May followed by 3 nights in Lviv to the west of Ukraine and really liked the city, which was an enjoyable and upbeat finish to my journey to every capital city in Europe. Kiev is at the eastern edge of Europe, with Ukraine being the largest country in Europe and also the poorest. It is also exceptional in that its own government when it was part of the USSR caused a famine in the region which led to around 4 million people in the Ukraine dying of starvation during โ a famine now regarded as genocide with Stalin wanting to obliterate the Ukrainians.
However, the city we visited was a friendly and welcoming one and one which is really pleased to have tourists from other parts of Europe. Ukraine had just elected a comedian as President a few weeks before we arrived, but we agreed with our guide, Vladimir that at least the Ukrainians knew they were electing a comedianโฆ.
We booked our trip through Regent Holidays, who booked our flights, hotel accommodation, transfers to and from airports and railway stations, first-class train tickets between Kiev and Lviv and a half day guided tour on our first morning in Kiev โ all the background basics so we could just potter around as tourists.
It was all shiny black and mirrors everywhere, with a large photo of a naked woman on our floor and a continuous video running in the lift which seemed to consist mostly of women pouting at the camera. Breakfast was excellent and luckily it was a buffet as the service when we had a lunch in the hotel was dire โ not just slow but the timing was completely off.
