So, all my pictures from my vacation trips are now uploaded and will be available here in the next few posts, but before i start adding them here i’ll tell just a few words about what’s everything about. I’m just a bit lazy I just don’t have enough time to write proper report about our everyday life there telling what is what on every picture (maybe i’ll do it a bit later on my livejournal blog), so just to be short:

We were four people from Latvia traveling to Ukraine for 2 weeks (i stayed there i bit longer to visit some relatives and friends in Kyiv): me, Dmytro, Margarita and Mārtiņš. We started our trip on 30.07.2010 coming to Lviv next day. We stayed two days there and in the night from 1st to 2nd of August we traveled further to Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. We stayed in a town called Mukačevo and travelled arount to sanatorium “Karpaty”, Szentmiklós castle in Čenadijevo village, Užhorod, Berehove, have been on two wine tastings (second one was just the best tasting i ever been to), visited all different places of interest and just having fun. On 4th of August we left Transcarpathia and next day in the very early morning we were at our friend’s place in Kolomyia. Had a small walk around the town and same day in the evening we left to his village – Verkhnij Bereziv, were we stayed 4 days trying to reconstruct the way locals have been living here a pair of sanctuaries ago: cooking traditional food and eating it in traditional way and using old traditional dishes, we went to take some salty water source to boil it afterwords and get some salt the way locals got it already seven sanctuaries ago, we’ve been to local shepherds were we got some home-made cheese and some fresh milk (was still warm), we even tried to milk a cow next day, but only Dmytro managed to do it properly. Actually we did a lot of village work we never done living in a city. So, if you’re interested in smth like this, you’re welcome to contact this guy: http://vlotko.livejournal.com. We’ve been back to Kolomyia on 8th of August, had another walk around the town and visited local rock bar. Next day we went to Chernivtsi – beautiful town which celebrated it’s 600 years BD 3 years ago, so now everything is renovated and looks just awesome. Worth to visit. Same day in the evening we went to Ternopil where we stayed at Dmytro’s parent’s place and for the next four days we’ve been travelling around the region or just having some wine in the city itself. We visited famous castle in Zbaraž, also another day we booked a minibus with a driver (it was only smth like a 60 euros from group for all day of travels) and made a rout around Ternopil’ska oblast having stops in Terebovlia (castle), Čortkiv (old massive catholic church in gothic style, wooden orthodox church, castle ruins), crystal caves (Kryštaleva) near to Kryvče village, Červonohrad (old castle ruins, just two towers left; old catholic ruins, and biggest waterfall in the Western Ukraine – Džuryns’kyj vodospad), Mykulynci village. Last night in Ternopilščyna we spent at Dmytro’s father’s village having BBQ and home-made wine. Next day we went back to Lviv where the rest of company except of me had a bus back to Riga while i visited a small concert in a squat where a friend of mine was singing, and same evening a had a train to Kyiv. In Kyiv i spent to days living at my brother’s place. First day i visited two friends at their summerhouse (BBQ again;) and met some other ones in the city afterwords. Second day i went to visit my nephews one of which i haven’t seen for 11 years (incredible!!!). On 17th of August i’ve been back to Lviv where from i had a bus back to Riga. The trip was REALLY cool, but actually in general moving almost every day from one place to another, spending hours and hours in trains and buses was kinda bit annoying in the end, so, on August 18th i was really glad to be back home… home sweet home.

Though i was bit tired of traveling three days after being back from Ukraine i had a plane to Norway to visit my relatives there and spend a day in Oslo…

Emm, my working day is over. i planned to write just a few words… i mean, less then i already wrote, so i’ll finish with this and just post the pics. Hope you enjoy them.

BTW, this blog is just built and i forgot to test if the commenting is working properly or not. So, you’re free to do this instead of me

Cheers!