Living L'viv

To pick up where I left you last time: the road from Rzeszów to Przemyśl, at the Polish-Ukrainian border. Quite a bit of wind and rain. And new roads, which most people like, but I don't. It's actually part of the standard 'Q&A'-time I have when I meet with people and tell them about my cycle plans. It goes more or less like this:

Q1: Where are you from?
A1: The Netherlands.
Q2: Where are you going?
A2: To Beijing.
Q3: Why?
A3: Because I like cycling.
Q4: Why are you alone?
A4: Because most of my friends think it's quite a rediculous idea to cycle to Beijing.
Q5: The roads are bad here, don't you think?
A5: The worse, the better! You see, if there are holes in the road, than cars cannot go so fast and drivers are more careful.

But new roads to Przemyśl. Some parts were so new, that they still had construction workers on it, which also slowed down traffic, but came with wet tarmac as well... I couched with a family close the city, in the village of Zurawica. At night, Matt, their youngest son took me out to town by car and told me about its history. During the second World War, this town was part of the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop border (included in the pact between the Germans and Russians), and this border actually devided the city in half. The river that runs through it became the demarcation line, so on both side of it you still find fortified areas. The city also has a remarkable amount of museums, including one for 'bells and pipes', and one of the two in the whole of Poland for Japanese art. Further back into history the city was a meeting point of religions, and so it is home to an archbishop of the Catholic church and one of the Orthodox church (some of churches date back to the 14th century!). It also has a nice synagogue. (As you can see, I listened carefully to my guide, even though it was pooring rain and my 'seafood'-diet demanded pizza...)

The next morning I carried on, first to the Ukrainian border, and then beyond EU-land. Now it gets interesting I thought. Even worse roads (whohoo), even less reliable police (gulp), and... Other cyclebeasts! Two of them, well actually, three! Two 'bêtes de vélocipède' from France and one 'rowerzwierz' from Poland who was carrying his guitar on his back carrier.

When I saw Phillipe and David, having a coffee at a small store next to the road, the mechanism for an emergency stop was immediately activated: heavy braking and U-turn to say: hi! Phillipe, who's living in Berlin asked me if I speak German so we had a chat. At the moment my destination came up (Q2 so pretty soon) he and David cried out: putain! "Ah, vous êtes français!", I said and we talked a bit more. They actually had a few left-over Hryvnia (UAH), the Ukrainian currency, which traded one on one to my left-over Polish Złoty, which came in handy when I realised 20 kilometers down the road that I had forgotten my bottle of water at the store.

The road to L'viv (Lwow in Polish, Lemberg in German), the M-11, wasn't much fun to cycle. Not that much traffic, but just one straight line with some hills. For 66 kilometers. L'viv however is mesmerising. An old town that got its glory at the time that the Austrian-Hungarian empire shaped it. And by the looks of it, it still has that exact same shape. Here and there renovation works are carried out, but the place breaths history.

I checked into Hotel L'viv, which is by far the cheapest option, or so I was told by different people on the streets (I didn't ask the lady on the picture for obvious reasons). I tried to find some couch hosts, but that didn't work out as well as it did in Poland. One potential couch host replied to me: "thanks for your email, but unfortunately we cannot meet last-minute requests", as if it is some company policy with 'standard operating procedures'. "Sorry, the s.o.p. clearly indicates that requests should be filed at least 21 days before processing, so you've exceeded that term by 20 days, which means we could be of help, but only as of the first of September. Please try again later." Great way to kill an ideal.

Actually I should be thankful, because otherwise I would have missed 'Hotel L'viv'. Another relic of the past: built 45 years ago by the Soviets to host... well Soviets and foreign guests. The bricks of this building ooze communism. You can choose between a single or a double bed, with or without bathroom. The cheapest option will set you back 90 UAH per night, the most expensive one 190. I took the cheapest one, which comes with a tiny towel that barely covers your private parts as you walk down the old corridors with squeaky floorboards (so that the caretaking lady that holds office next to the bathroom can hear you coming and makes sure se looks when you pass). I think the room was used to receive the communist party of the United States of America in the past, because it must be the crummiest room I have seen in a long time.

(The picture shows a painting of Oleg Suslenko that I saw when I found myself in a small gallery.)

The checking-in in itself was funny too. First I went to the reception, where I found two middle-aged ladies. One of them spoke fine English and gave me two papers. One was my registration, the other one I had to give to the caretaker on my floor. But first I had to go to the man who was at the desk near the elivators. This man looked at my registration paper, and said: "Ah, Niederland, sprechen Sie Deutsch?" Which I confirmed, to which he replied: "¿Habla usted auch español?, which I don't really do, but I thought, if it can help this moment forward I will try my best, so I said: "si, señor", to which the man replied "vale", while walking me to the elevator: "piso 5" (my room number is 533, so this was clear to me from the start), after which he pressed '5' and '><' to close the doors. But I have to say, it felt great to tell him "hasta la vista" when I walked out of the hotel a little later to find something to eat. Next track on the OST of 'koen cycles east': Bonobo's 'Days to Come' about travels towards eastern suns:

Cycling east continues tomorrow, when I set off to Ternopil (I know, doesn't sound very picturesque, but I am curious).