Bukovyna Part II: The Land of Castles

Our second day in Chernivtsi, we got up bright and early to catch our bus to Khotyn, which is about an hour or so northeast of Chernivtsi. We disembarked in this small town, and asked around for directions to the fortress. Everyone pointed us in the same direction, but it was a long, cold, icy and treacherous walk through the town.

"Is that the fortress?" we joked.

Then, finally, we saw some signs.

Talia took this picture of us standing in front of the "Fortress" sign.
For some reason we all look really happy to be freezing!

After a bit more walking, we came to the crest of the hill where the fortress sits.

I believe that's St. Volodymyr guarding the entrance.

As Talia noted when she took this picture, Charitie and I got the posing sort of backwards. This little stray dog was our tour guide at Khotyn-- she followed us everywhere. Talia named her Jeanie.

"Khotyns'ka Fortetsya"

The main gate at the top of the hill.

Looking through the gate.

This landscape was so white that nearly all of us were snowblind by the time we returned. Not pleasant!

On the near side of the fortress, a church.

First view of the fortress. You can't see very well, but there are really neat whorl patterns in the brickwork.

Looking back at the entrance to the valley, a stunning view

 This is my "I'M AT A CASTLE!!!!" face :)

There was no one around, since we were the only people crazy enough to walk to this darn place in the depths of January. We paid the workers and then wandered around.

Inside the castle keep

The first tower we entered had torture instruments.

Talia stands in the Iron Maiden.

These signs had some great engrish. "Thorn could screw with the male screw and the victim of torture had to stand on the toe, till it had the force." XD

Then we went through the courtyard, and down into the dungeon.

Cool door.

Catapult, anyone?

Our faithful tour guide, Jeanie, followed us, even though these stairs were super steep and were taller than she was :)

During the spring and summer, this is apparently a cafe.

We spent quite a while at Khotyn, probably longer than we should have. Because of our time crunch (and also because of the really icy-dangerous roads) we hailed a taxi to take us back to the bus stop, where we jumped a bus for the hour-long trip to Kamyanets-Podilsky.

When we arrived in Kamyanets-Podilsky, we were all hungry and freezing. After taking a bus from the "new town" where we'd been dropped off to the "new town," we ducked into a cafe for some delicious Polish food. We didn't have much time before it would get dark, though, so we had to hurry on.

There were also some beautiful churches in Kamyanets-Podilsky.

Aside from L'viv, Kamyanets-Podilsky was probably the most magical place I've ever been. This entire city was built atop a fortress, many pieces of which can still be seen sticking up between buildings. The castle is high above the rest of the city, creating this uncanny sensation that you are stepping into a Van Helsing, or some other Dracula movie.

The fortress overlooks this valley city.

Beautiful church on the hill.

The other fun thing about Kamyanets-Podilsky is that you can climb all over the castle-- up in the turrets, along the battlements. AWESOME.

Talia told me to let down my hair, but it just wasn't long enough.
(also, this is possibly the coolest picture of all time.)

Along the battlements!

Through the arrow-slit window

Looking down over the valley from up on the battlements

Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time at the castle because it was getting dark and we didn't want to miss our bus. It is a place I definitely want to go back to, though, when the weather is warmer!

We made it back to the bus station only to learn that the next bus wouldn't be for another hour or more. So we went to a cafe beside the Avtovokzal (bus station) for a cup of tea. And this place was GREAT... they had a live chicken in a coop right inside the entrance. Probably the least sanitary thing. Ever.

Then our bus was late, and we had to wait in the freezing cold for about a half an hour. We were so cold and tired we started singing "if I had a hammer"...I really don't know why. Then when the bus finally came, we didn't get seats and had to stand for a while until enough people got off that we could sit down.

We finally got back to Chernivtsi around 8 or 9, then went out for some dinner. It had been a long day, and we needed some rest to get ready for our next adventure...

Bukovyna Part I: Chernivtsi

Apologies for the excessive delay. I had some issues with my university and it took time to sort them out. Now everything is better, I hope, and there is time to talk about my trip to Bukovyna, the land of castles.

The train curtains even have castles on them.

The name "Bukovyna" may be familiar to you from our Ukrainian folk-dancing days. Bukovyna is a region in southwestern Ukraine, containing beautiful Austro-Hungarian architecture, castles, and pre-karpaty snowscapes. We saw all of these things during our trip. It was really a very busy adventure.

On a Wednesday, January 24th, I caught a night train. Talia and I were supposed to be on the same train, but we didn't manage to actually find each other. I shared my coupe with an old dude who snored excessively loudly. Plus, the train was exceedingly hot. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. When I arrived in Chernivtsi on Thursday morning, I met up with Talia, as well as Joel and Charitie, who had come from L'viv and had arrived an hour or so earlier. The first thing we did upon arriving was try to find our hostel. This proved to be much more difficult than we expected. First, Joel hadn't printed out the reservation so we didn't have any confirmation number or phone number for the place. Then, when we checked our Lonely Planet guidebooks for the phone number, the man who answered said he didn't know anything about our coming to stay but that he would come to meet us. We thought that was a little strange, but waited for him anyway. When we actually met him, we found out it probably wasn't the right hostel, even though the guidebook said there was only one hostel in Chernivtsi. We thanked him and left, and went to an internet cafe to find the number for the hostel we had actually booked with. We didn't find out the whole story until we actually got to the right hostel, but apparently there had once been two hostels in Chernivtsi, both owned by the same person, and one had been run by the guy we first met, until they had a falling out of some kind, so now there was really only one hostel. However, that guy was still occasionally taking people in when he needed the money. It was all very sketchy. We were glad when we had finally found the right place.

For the first day, we just hung around Chernivtsi. It is a beautiful city which some call the "little Paris of Ukraine." It had a lot of the same Austro-Hungarian architecture as you would find in L'viv, but many of the buildings were kept up much better, and had been renovated and painted. The overall effect was quite enjoyable, though I still think I like L'viv better.

Chernivtsi's main square

The famous blue town hall is on the left.

Chernivtsi's main synagogue, which was converted into a movie theater after the Holocaust. Chernivtsi's Jewish history, while rich, is also pretty grim.

Our main stop of the day was at Chernivtsi's famous university, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The chapel was the most eye-catching part of the campus

The tiling on the roofs was exquisite!

I made a visit to the Geography department :)

It looked like Hogwarts!

Then we ducked into the chapel itself, to see the inside. How gorgeous!

After our adventures, we had dinner and returned to the hostel to rest up for the next day's adventures: CASTLES!!!