Visit Churches, Castles, old cemeteries near lviv
Wooden Church Near Lviv
If you are in Lviv and wondering how to fill in an extra day, why not join us on a tour to the Ukrainian countryside outside of Lviv. It includes a visit of the old castles around Lviv, a traditional wooden church, an old Jewish cemetery and ruins of a synagogue. This is also a good trip to enjoy rural scenery along the way. This tour is for an individual or a small group of up to 4 people.
Overview of the Rural Tour Outside of Lviv
Jewish Cemetery in Brody
Countryside outside of Lviv is filled with amazing things that are often taken for granted. As Ukraine remains one of the few countries in Europe that offers the most authentic tourist experience, tourist attractions outside of Lviv are not kept to draw sightseers. Instead, they simply exist because local people created them for their religious or cultural purpose. If there is no longer a purpose for a site, it stays there and slowly crumbles away.
Such is the case with the synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in Brody near Lviv, a town that is visited on this tour. At one point in time Brody was a thriving Jewish community at the eastern Border of the Austrian Empire. It is the birth place of Joseph Roth who wrote the well known Radetzky March. Sigmund Freud’s mother was also born in Brody. An old Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of Brody is truly amazing and has the highest possible tombstones scattered around a large grassy cemetery.
Castle in Pidhirtsi
The wooden church from 1697 in a village of Kuty is well hidden behind shabby country houses, barns and potato plots. A narrow dirt path used mostly by the chickens and farm animals leads to the church from the village street. When the church suddenly appears behind the clutter of rural objects, the view is breathtaking.
The old castles near Lviv in Olesko, Pidhirtsi and Zolochiv are also known as the Golden Horseshoe Castles. Olesko Castle dates back to the 13th century, being the oldest. It is known as a birth place of the famous Polish king Jan III Sobieski. Olesko Castle has been turned into a museum featuring 16th and 17th century art. There are hardly any castles in the world that went through such roller coaster transformations. They went from being a royal residence to a hospital, vocational school for farming machinery mechanics, ghost-haunted ruins, museums, crumbling structures in perpetual state of restoration where cows and goats graze on once well-kept lawns. If you expect to see well maintained castles similar to those scattered around Western Europe, then this tour is not for you. Instead, these scarred castles reflect complex history of Eastern Galicia (now in Western Ukraine) and, in combination with other sites and villages along the way, make for a nice day trip outside of Lviv.
We recommend visiting Olesko, Pidhirtsi and Zolochiv castles. If you like old paintings and furniture and plan to visit a museum in Olesky Castle, note that the castle is closed for visitors on Mondays. The duration of the tour is about 6 hours.
Contact us today if you have any questions regarding this tour!
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