Latin Leopolis, The City of the Lion

Coming back to one of our less visited countries in Europe, Ukraine, also one of the biggest with so much to see and so much to offer. While we had a great time visiting the capital Kiev in other trips, it was about time to come to the beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site listed city of Lviv. The most historical of any in the country and with such an incredible vast amount of old buildings, churches, palaces and monuments all over the city; many of which already perfectly restored to their former glory with many on the way. In this city you can still strongly feel its Soviet past with areas where it seems time stood still, but it is changing and redeveloping rapidly itself to become the next new major tourist spot in Eastern Europe.

The city’s potential is unquestionable. Through its history of invasions and different empires taking over this region it kept gaining strength and importance, and survived almost intact the Soviet invasion and both World Wars, unlike majority of its neighbours, or even Kiev that was severely destroyed to rubble.

Invaded by the Tatars in 1261 by King Daniel and completely razed to the ground, was rebuilt from 1270 by King Lev (Leo) who chose it as his residence, making it the capital of Galicia-Volhynia. Inherited by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1340, then Poland gaining control in 1349 with Casimir III becoming part of the Kingdom of Poland until 1772 with the First Partition of Poland and as such, the region annexed to Austria, Habsburg Empire. This would last until the end of WWI with the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy, leading to the Polish-Ukrainian War, when Poland retook control. As for the last years on the city’s recent history, at the brink of WWII the Soviets invaded the land and slowly annexed it to the Soviet Union, lasting until its complete independence in 1980. (more…)