Post 1/10 of a memorable tour around Ukraine, from Kiev to Chernobyl, on to Odessa, Lviv and Uzhhorod. A nine-day insight into a diverse, beautiful country I will most certainly want to go back to!

Preliminary remark #1

If somebody had told my 11-year-old self that one day I would only watch the sea from the shore throughout the whole summer, and that this sea would be the Black Sea, my younger self would probably have been either utterly shocked or mildly exhilarated. Yes, I was one of those people that would invariably go to the seaside every year, always around the same time in July, always back to the same seaside resort.

As you can easily tell from the phrasing of my intro, that seemingly far-fetched scenario came true this year, and I was extremely pleased to bid goodbye to summer 2017 and all the beauty it presented me with.

Odessa, Black Sea

Preliminary remark #2

9 Jul 2017. We were standing at the very back of tram 5 on our way from Mendlovo to the centre. It was a Sunday, and my parents and niece were visiting me in Brno. Bobby and I were casually discussing where we would spend our 10 days off in early September. We thought we knew fore sure we’d be travelling around the Balkans, though nothing had been established for sure.

One of us must have (also casually) mentioned Ukraine, and how it’d be cool to also go there, as it’d be easy to fly out to Kiev from Prague or Budapest.
A few seconds of thoughtful silence ensued, and then right there and then we knew where we’d be going.

‘A bright future in exchange for a notebook with write-ups’