Welcome to Lviv! Also known as Lwów , Lvov, Lemberg, City of Lions!
We both feel we got super lucky with our Airbnb rental. It's on the second floor of this beautiful castle. Sosnowski Palace was built in 1901 by Polish architect Józef Sosnovski. It was originally built as a home for Sosnovski but is now apartments.
This morning we headed out to the explore the city center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the UNESCO website: "The city of L'viv, founded in the late Middle Ages, was a flourishing administrative, religious and commercial centre for several centuries. The medieval urban topography has been preserved virtually intact (in particular, there is evidence of the different ethnic communities who lived there), along with many fine Baroque and later buildings."
Behind the Dominican Cathedral we found a large book market with used books in just about every language, although mostly Ukrainian, Russian and Polish. In the center of the market is a large statue of Ivan Fedorov, an early printer known as the father of East Slavonic Printing.
Lviv is known as the City of Lions because of its many depictions of lions throughout the city, and they apparently date back to early legends of the area. There are lions on just about everything here. I started take a picture of the first few I saw and then realized there were too make to keep it up. They're on the buildings, signs, trash cans, sewers, everything!
Yuriy Kulchitsky, a Galician merchant, is a local coffee hero. He's known for introducing the first café, called House under the Blue Bottle. In October, locals celebrate a special Kulchitsky day in his honor. There's also a large statue of him a block outside the main center.
A few more pictures from today:
"This is where the mouse lives."
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