Post-tour 1

Western Ukraine (6 days)

Day 1

Leaving Kyiv, your bus will take you south toward Uman. You will cross the Central Ukrainian Region with the largest continuous locust growth area in the world, and visit one of the largest apiaries producing award-winning locust honey. After lunch with local beekeepers, you will visit the world-famous Sofi yivsky Landscape Park (1, see page 46, paragraph 3). You will spend the rest of the day walking thematic alleys, taking on boat journeys to underground caves, and simply relaxing in numerous arbors this marvel of garden and park art is so rich with.

Day 2

From Uman the bus will take you west to Vinnytsia (2) where you will visit on e of the largest honey producers, the Ukrainian Honey Company. Continuing westwards, you will make a short stop in Medzhybizh (3) famous for its unassailable medieval castle and also as a cradle of Hasidic Judaism and the place of annual pilgrimage of thousands of Hasidic Jews from all over the world. After that, your route will take you north and end in Iziaslav (4) where you will be invited to a dinner with representatives of Ukrainian beekeeping business.

Day 3

While in Iziaslav, you will visit production facilities and laboratory of another famous honey producer, Ukrainian-Polish joint venture Bartnik. Then, your journey will again take you south to fascinating Kamianets- Podilskyi (5) (see page 45, paragraph 2). Most part of the city is taken by one of the largest fortresses in the world which had never been captured and which now is a candidate for a unesco World Heritage Site.

Day 4

After spending the night inside medieval walls of Kamianets-Podilskyi you will continue traveling westwards toward the Carpathian Mountains. Your route will take you along picturesque mountain passes to Ciscarpathian sub-alpine meadows (called ‘polonyna’ in Ukrainian), where you will make a stop in Kolomyia (6) to visit the only museum of pysanka (Ukrainian Easter egg decorated using beeswax) in the world built in the form of a huge Easter egg. After that, you will go deep into unesco-heritage Carpathian forest (see page 51, paragraph 10) and visit the geographical center of Europe near Rakhiv (7). Towards the end of the day you will arrive to Khust (8) where you will be met by Transcarpathian bee-breeders.

Day 5

You will see the largest queen and worker bee-breeding farms of Ukraine where local experts will tell you about their bee-breeding experience, and then you will take photographs with them near the monument to the famous Carpathian bee. After the ceremonial lunch the bus will turn northwards: you will again pass through picturesque Carpathians and in the evening will arrive to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, the incomparable Lviv.

Day 6

The whole last day of this post-tour will be devoted to Lviv (5, see page 44, paragraph 1) where the entire central part of the city is inscribed as unesco World Heritage Site. You will walk along quiet Lviv streets with the architecture representing a unique mix of all European styles without exception plus, perhaps, a Middle Eastern style, enjoy coffee and hot chocolate in one of the famous Lviv coffee shops (by the way, Yuri Kulchytsky who introduced coffee to Europe was from Lviv), and a local tour guide will tell you about the fascinating history of this City of Five Empires.

Lviv has direct fl ight connections to many European capitals, so you will have many options of planning your time after the end of this post-tour. And something tells us that you will want to stay in Lviv at least a few days longer! :)