Lemberg-Odessa, April-May

Again, two last-minute tour invitations, although May is still far. However, the hotels in Lemberg/Lwów’s city center have been booked since last Christmas for the May 3-6 weekend, partly by the travel agencies, and partly by the emigrants, who want to participate at home in the greatest feast of the Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic Christians. Thus, we really have to hurry if we have to get an accommodation at a relatively good place and reasonable price for our Orthodox Easter tour.

The applications for the other travel are also urged by the scarcity of accommodations. Last year we stayed in Odessa in the middle of the downtown, at the beginning of Deribasovskaya Street, opposite the City Park, in a series of newly renovated and cheap apartments. Apart from them, there are no other reasonably priced hotels in the city, because, however odd it sounds, Odessa is not a tourist town. The – almost exclusively Russian – tourists coming here usually stay at the beach, and only come to dinner to the elegant restaurants of the downtown. And in late April the preseason starts, so the apartments will run out quickly.

Therefore we announce a final application until March 21 for the following two tours:

• Czernowitz-Kamenets-Podolsk-Odessa, April 25 to May 1st (Thursday to Wednesday). See here the joint reportof our journey in last October, and here the detailed outline of the program We will reach Odessa in two days through the breathtakingly beautiful Maramureș mountains of the Eastern Carpathians, and the hills of Bucovina, and after three days spent at the Black Sea we come home in two more days. During the twice two day long travel we will stop in a number of historical places. the Hasidic pilgrimage sites of the tomb of Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism in Medzhibozh and at that of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav in Uman, and at the magnificent medieval castle of Khotin along the Dnester. On the way there we will stay for the night in the city of Czernowitz still preserving the air of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, while on the way back in the city of Kamenets-Podolsk with a traditional Armenian presence, in a hotel under the old town’s fantastic central rock surrounded by a mountain river. In Odessa we walk about the city, the Neoclassicist seaside promenade, the 19th-century trading city, the Moldavanka, the Jewish and Greek neighborhoods, the Sunday flea market. This is probably our last trip to Odessa in this year, so if you like it, join it now! Planned costs (travel with minibus + accommodation + guide): ca. 400-430 euro, depending on the number of the participants.


• Eastern Easter in Lemberg/Lwów, May 3-6 (Friday to Monday). One of the most beautiful weekends, a veritable festival in the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional city, when the Greek Catholic, Armenian Catholic and Orthodox Easter coincide with each other. I will indicate the date of the most beautiful Easter celebrations of the various confessions, at which the participation is of course optional, just like at the peak of the feast, the Resurrection Mass at Saturday night. In Saturday and Sunday we will walk about the old city of Lemberg, the Armenian and Jewish quarter, the Art Nouvea neighborhoods and the surviving monuments of the Jewish suburb, and will also visit the open air museum of Rusyn wooden churches. On the way to Lemberg we will visit the little town of Drohobycz, birthplace of Bruno Schulz, and on the way back we will stop to look around above the Carpathians on the Pass of Verecke. Planned costs (travel with minibus + accommodation + guide): ca. 250 euro, depending on the number of the participants and the available hotel prices.

Deadline of application and payment of advance: March 21.