Yesterday evening we have arrived in Kiev. We are staying with friends of Lárisa: Inna, Maxim, their son Wowa and Inna’s mother. It is a very nice place to stay, they are very hospitable. We have eaten well, yesterday evening and drank some vodkas.

Today we have visited Kiev, there are many things to see here. The Lavra, the great patriotic war museum, rodina mat, tchernobyl museum, the funicular, …

First thing we did is go see the Pechera Lavra. This is a historic Orthodox Christian monastery which has been founded in 1051. Together with the Saint Sophia cathedral it is inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site. You can follow a tour with a guide or go by yourself. We have done the latter. Inside one of the churches there was a service ongoing.
Underground there are two caves which can be visited. Beware to wear the proper clothes or you will not be able to enter.

After the caves you end up in the botanical gardens, which are always nice in the late spring. Time to eat some icecream!
Next to the park there is the Afghanistan museum and the National museum of the second world war or Національний музей історії Великої Вітчизняної війни 1941–1945 років. Unfortunately both museums are closed on Mondays! But we saw the many sculptures and the rodina mat. The language is hard in Ukraine as most is in Ukrainian and this is different than russian.

The next was the Tchernobyl museum. Due to the bad weather I was not able to ride north to the village of Tchernobyl. The other options are then to visit the museum in Kiev or book a touristic tour. The latter has also become quite difficult as you have to book it 15 days in advance. Some of the buildings are also collapsing nowadays which make the risks bigger when visiting the place. We have not booked it; so the museum visit was the last option. Unfortunately is was the monthly closing day today (last Monday of the month). We were not very lucky with the museum visits today.

We continued the walk through Kiev, wandering towards the Funicular which is a cable car up the hill which gives very nice views on the Dnieper river.

After this nice view you end up almost automatically at the Saint Sophia Cathedral which is also a must visit. There is a bell tower which gives you one of the best views in the city. The weather was very good, FEW I would say in pilot lingo, so you could see really far. Not sure if this means there is no smog in Kiev. There are a lot of big SUVs riding here. This is logical due to bad roads.

OK time to go for a beer at Maidan on Chresatik!