Things to do in Lviv

Landmark · Halytskyi district

A Renaissance market square ringed by forty-four merchant houses with the town hall in the middle, at the centre of an old town that UNESCO inscribed in 1998 as one of the least-altered in Central Europe.

Local tip: Climb the town hall tower — 400-odd steps, no lift, and the best view of the roofscape. Then walk two streets off the square in any direction: the tourist prices stop almost immediately and the кнайпи get better.

Culture · Lychakivskyi district

A wooded nineteenth-century necropolis of monumental sculpture — Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian and Jewish Lviv all buried on the same hillside — and now, in its newest section, the military graves of the current war.

Local tip: Go on a weekday morning and allow two hours. The Field of Mars section with the fresh graves and flags is not a tourist attraction; if you go there, go quietly and do not photograph mourners.

Culture · Prospekt Svobody

An 1900 neo-Renaissance opera house at the head of the main boulevard, gilded and frescoed inside, still running a full repertoire of opera and ballet through the war with performances scheduled around the curfew.

Local tip: Tickets are absurdly cheap by Western European standards and often available on the day. Performances start early so the audience can be home before midnight — check the time twice, it is not the 7:30 you expect.

Nature · North-east of the centre

The wooded hill where the castle stood, climbing to a mound above the rooftops with the whole city, the Opera, the domes and the surrounding hills laid out below.

Local tip: Walk up through the park from Krivonosa rather than taking a taxi to the top — twenty minutes through the trees, and the last stretch of steps is the point. Best an hour before sunset.

Nightlife · Around Rynok and Drukarska

Lviv's particular institution: small, dense, eccentric bars in cellars and courtyards, several of them elaborate themed productions from the !FEST group, others simply very old rooms with very good horilka.

Local tip: The famous themed ones are worth doing once. For the actual scene, look for the unmarked doors and courtyards off Drukarska and Virmenska, and remember that everything closes in time for a midnight curfew.

Food · Rynok Square

A coffee house built around the conceit that coffee is mined under the city — helmets, a shaft, and a genuinely serious roastery attached to the joke.

Local tip: The tourist attraction is the mine tour; the reason to come is the roastery counter, where you buy beans that are as good as anything in Ukraine at a fraction of Kyiv prices. Ask them to grind for your method.