Lviv Travel Guide

Lviv is a city where you can travel without worrying too much about expenses. Furthermore, it’s a visa free destination for most of the nationalities. We planned a weekend trip to this small and charming Ukrainian city in February.

Lviv Travel Guide: General Information

Lviv is located just 70 km from the Polish border and is the 7th largest city in Ukraine. The city has witnessed many wars throughout its history, including both World Wars. However, the historical structure of the city center has somehow been preserved. Lviv has become one of the most important art and cultural centers in the country. It’s also considered one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in Europe. This small city delights tourists with its concept venues, restaurants, and reasonable prices.

Lviv Travel Guide: Transportation & Accommodation

We landed in Lviv around 15:30 on Friday and had no trouble getting through customs at the airport. We used the taxis at the airport to reach our accommodation.

For accommodation, we rented a house in the city center through Airbnb. Unfortunately, we weren’t very satisfied with it, it wasn’t as it looked in the photos. My recommendation is to stay in a hotel in center and explore everything on foot. You can check Lviv hotels options in here.

Booking.com

Lviv Travel Guide: Internet

If you want to avoid any internet inconveniences while exploring, you can purchase an e-sim from Airalo here. When making your first e-sim purchase on Airalo, use the code IAMONT3974 to receive a $3 discount. 🙂

Lviv Travel Guide: Places to Visit

Old Town

To see the city during the day, we bundled up and hit the streets. The cobblestone streets, small colorful houses, historical texture, and little piles of snow on the streets of the Old Town, protected by UNESCO, felt like a scene from a movie.

Lviv Flea Market

While strolling in the Old Town, we stumbled upon the flea market located in a nearby back street. Here, you can find second-hand books, pins, Soviet-era emblems, antique items, and more. If you want to buy a souvenir or keepsake, you’ll find plenty of options here. I highly recommend taking a look. 🙂

City Hall

On our last day, we went to City Hall, located right in the Old Town. After a long climb up the stairs, we reached the terrace of the building. The view was truly amazing! Don’t let the number of stairs intimidate you. I assure you, the view at the top is worth it.

Dominican Church

Next, we visited the Dominican Church, one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the city. This church carries traces of Baroque architecture, and on top of it, it says ‘SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA,’ which means ‘Glory and honor to God alone.’ Since it was a Sunday, there was an extra crowd. Luckily, we also witnessed a mass baptism ceremony.

Lviv Travel Guide: Food & Drinks

First of all, I have to say that I realized by the end of the trip that we came here basically to eat. Almost all the activities we did and places we visited over the weekend were centered around food and drinks. This article has turned into a kind of food and drink guide. Anyway, let’s get started 🙂

Baczewski Restaurant

For our first dinner in Lviv, we went to Baczewski Restaurant. This place has a beautiful garden and is a very popular restaurant where you can have a buffet breakfast in the morning. It also serves dinner on the second floor designed in Renaissance style. We sat on the second floor. To be honest, I absolutely loved this place and its food. First, to warm up, we had a traditional onion and vegetable soup. Then, we tried Vareniky, Ukrainian dumplings, with potato and chicken fillings. Of course, we also had Kumpel beer. 🙂 Everything was wonderful. We loved this place so much that we returned for lunch on our last day.

Drunk Cherry

After dinner, we went to Drunk Cherry, located right in the Old Town. This place is famous for its cherry liqueurs and is quite popular. We really liked the taste of the liqueur, it was perfect for the February cold.

Royal Brewery

Our next stop after cherry liqueur was Royal Brewery. Here, we tried a few options including Lviv’s unique beers. My favorite was the wheat beer. If you’re interested, I definitely recommend coming here for a tasting. 🙂

Lviv Croissant

We had our Saturday breakfast at Lviv Croissant. The croissants were quite satisfying and reasonably priced.

Lviv Coffee Manufacture

After a bit of city tour and flea market, we came to Lviv Coffee Manufacture. It’s a third-wave coffee shop comes with interesting concept. Here, you can buy various types of coffee or try them in the café. After wandering inside a bit, we followed the stairs leading to the ground floor. As soon as we went down, they put miner helmets on our heads. With the light from the helmets, we could see our way & explored the ground floor. They made statues of miners working in the rooms. We had a coffee each in the café of the place and warmed up.

Lviv Handmade Chocolate

Before coming to Lviv, I had already started to imagine the famous Lviv Handmade Chocolate. As the name suggests, it’s a three-story establishment that makes and sells handmade chocolates. We sat on the terrace on the third floor, and the whole building smelled of chocolate. You can watch how the chocolates are made live in the workshop on the ground floor. Also, you can buy souvenir chocolates from the second-floor shop. I loved both the place and the chocolates!

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Masoch Cafe

For our second dinner, we went to Masoch Cafe, which has a quite interesting concept. This is a masochistic café where the waiters walk around with whips, and people can whip themselves while eating. Our purpose in going to this place, which seemed very unreal to us, was actually to see if such a place and concept really exist.

As soon as we entered and asked “Is there a vacant table,” I received a little whip on my back, and that was it, we sat at the first table we found. The inside was full of handcuffs, chains, male and female figures. It was like being in Christian Grey’s room, no, this place was definitely more extreme. Even in their menus, they boldly displayed their quirks. While we were having our meal, the people sitting at the table next to us asked the waiters, “Excuse me, could you give me 20 lashes”. They lay on the floor, and everyone in the place watched the waiter whip them one by one. I can say it was one of the weirdest restaurants I’ve ever been to.

Kryivka

For Saturday lunch, we went to Kryivka, located right across from City Hall. This place is a war-themed restaurant. After a long wait, when our turn came, a serviceman in military uniform opened a large iron door and asked us for the password. We immediately said the password, ‘Slava Ukraini!’. It means Glory to Ukraine. The serviceman led us inside the restaurant and offered us a shot as we entered. It is said that during wartime, this place was used as a shelter. And thanks to the password tactic, they could tell if the person trying to enter was Ukrainian or Russian based on their accent. If the person was Ukrainian, they would be given a vodka shot like the one we received at the entrance. If they were Russian, they would be given a poisonous shot.

The interior was filled with military items, hand grenades, canteens, and so on. And in the background, you could hear the sounds of war in a dim. We had Borsch soup here, it was of average taste. I can’t say it was the best Borsch soup I’ve ever had.

Lviv Travel Guide: Nightlife

Despite some negative reviews we read, we went to the nightclub called Metro in Lviv to see the city’s nightlife with our own eyes. It was really as bad as they said, they actually understated it. It’s a quite low-quality place with some old men on the dance floor. Plus the music is really bad. After observing a bit and satisfying our curiosity, we headed back home. 🙂

Lviv Travel Guide: Notes & Recommendations & Closing

• I pinned the places to visit and restaurants in order on Google Maps. If you save the map below, you can easily access the locations even without the internet.
• We didn’t spend more than 100 dollars per person for accommodation, ample eating and drinking, going out at night, small souvenirs, and taxi fare to and from the airport. Since all the places we visited were gathered in the square in the Old Town and almost all of them were within a 5-minute distance from each other, despite the cold, we were able to walk everywhere.
• Lviv is a city that must be seen with its preserved historical texture, concept venues, and affordability. It’s a perfect weekend getaway for enjoying good food.
• You can find my travel article about Copenhagen, another European city you can fit into a weekend, here.