Kiev Kyiv, Ukraine
Ukraine
Frequently Asked Questions
At the river station on Poshtova Square, at the foot of the lower town. The location is ideal: the metro station is at the door and the century-old funicular climbs to the upper town in three minutes through a curtain of trees.
Service arrangements will evolve as pleasure navigation returns to the Dnipro. Check itinerary status with your travel adviser. This guide focuses on the Ukrainian capital's heritage, which endures.
Partly. The Podil district around the landing is entirely walkable. For the upper town — St Sophia, the Golden Gate — the funicular or metro spares you the climb. The Pechersk Lavra, upstream on the hills, requires transport.
The city's oldest merchant quarter, right around the landing. Kontraktova Square with its neoclassical facades, the artisans' lanes, the Samson fountain: everything speaks of the trading city of old, of its fairs and guilds.
A steep cobbled street lined with artists' studios and painters' stalls, climbing from Podil to St Andrew's Church, a turquoise-and-gold baroque building poised at the edge of the escarpment.
Begun in the eleventh century and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, it preserves original Byzantine mosaics beneath its domes, including the celebrated Orant Virgin, which have looked down on visitors for nine centuries. From its bell tower the panorama takes in the squares and domes of the upper town.
A monastery whose white-and-gold churches line the hills above the Dnipro, over a network of caves dug by monks from the eleventh century onward. Visitors descend by candlelight, past niches holding the bodies of the founding saints.
Podil and Andriivsky Descent on foot, the funicular to the upper town and St Sophia. The Pechersk Lavra deserves half a day on its own: better to choose than to rush.
Borscht made with beet sour, served with garlic buns; varenyky filled with fresh cheese; dark bread and country honey; and Kyiv cake with hazelnuts to finish. Covered markets, including the venerable steel-framed Bessarabsky Market, overflow with fruit, herbs and farm cheeses.
The Ukrainian hryvnia and the Ukrainian language. Unlike provincial towns, the capital widely accepts payment cards in shops and restaurants.
