Jul 2, 2025
If you already have at least ten photos from Rynok Square and have visited several restaurants within it, then you can replenish your collection of impressions on Stary Rynok Square. To go to it from the Town Hall for five minutes.
This square is also covered with pavements, but instead of colored stone with medieval architecture, here the architectural ensemble consists of several shabby two- and three-story houses of late Austrian buildings from the late 19th – early 20th century.
At the same time, this is exactly how – with frayed or in places plaster collapsed – and most of the houses of old Lviv look. That is why it is in the Old Market, and not in the “decorative” Market Square, that the real old Lviv rises.
Instead of conceptual restaurants – here, on benches under the open sky, you can meet local “aborigines” with alcoholic drinks in their hands. This will also become a certain acquaintance with the real Lviv: after all, not all Lviv residents are regulars at expensive restaurants.
However, regardless of the place – in a cafe or on a bench – it is always interesting to overhear the conversations of a local company: they often relate to politics, where each participant in the conversation probably knows what is the cause of all the troubles in Ukraine and how to save it from the bad.
And if you really want to be alone with yourself, you can hide in one of the oldest temples in the city – the Church of St. Nicholas, which is a few tens of meters from the Old Market.
High Castle – instead of the Town Hall
To climb to the observation deck on the Town Hall building, you have to climb 408 steps, and to view the city from the highest mountain in the city – Zamkovaya – you need to climb 413 meters above sea level.
From Rynok Square to the top, take a leisurely step up to an hour. From the Old Market – a little less. It is not worth putting on heels, not only from a difficult climb, but also through the pavement, which is covered all the way to the top.
For endurance – a reward: unity with nature, no fuss, two viewing platforms to the city, the opportunity to take pictures with stone lions, which are monuments of national importance, and climb on the remains of the walls of the 13th century castle.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the then mayor Lubomyr Bunyak proposed to completely restore the ancient castle. But this idea caused only an ironic smile among Lviv residents, despite the cosmic cost of such a project for the city budget.
Now in Lviv they are discussing a new idea “How to drag a tourist to the Castle Hill” – the construction of a funicular.
However, until this turned into intentions, and the castle did not become a noisy place, it is ideal to spend romantic dates here. Lviv residents also love to meet the sunrise at the highest point of the city – on the first day of the New Year, after graduation parties, or just after a fun night.
Having got acquainted with the UPA uniform, in which a man meets with mead in his hands at the entrance to the well-known to all tourists “Kryivka”, and having drunk a few glasses of crap to the songs of the rebels in the same restaurant – it is worth diving deeper into the topic of the Ukrainian liberation movement on a sober head.
The Museum of the Liberation Struggle of Ukraine is located a kilometer and a half from the Market Square in the direction of the Castle Hill. It was opened in 2012, five years later than Kryivka.
Here you will never see queues like in “Kryivka” – and, very likely, you will not be the only visitor. Although the museum is located only ten minutes walk from Rynok Square, there is no advertising for it, even on tourist signs.
The museum tells not only about the activities of the UPA, but in general about the liberation struggle of the Ukrainian during the twentieth century – the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Ukrainian division “Galicia”, which fought on the side of the German army.
Unlike the popular restaurant, here visitors will not be allowed to hold weapons in their hands, some of which are stored behind glass, and for a photo with a gun in the background, you will have to pay 20 hryvnia. But the entrance fee to the museum is symbolic – only 10 hryvnia, which is half the price of one beer in the “cache”.
Interactive is noticeably lacking here. However, this is typical of the majority of Lviv museums, where new technologies have not reached. Therefore, for a better perception of information, the best place to order an excursion For almost an hour story for an adult company, the price is 50 hryvnia – which is ten times cheaper than a lunch for several people in a restaurant on Rynok Square.
It is better not to come to the museum at the last hour before closing. After four o’clock, the workers will probably tell you: “We already wanted to go home, so please come tomorrow,” or simply – “We will be closing soon, we have a shortened day.”
ADDRESS: Lysenko, 23
In search of the Austro-Hungarian spirit in themed restaurants with fictional legends, tourists forget to explore the authentic monuments of this outstanding period for Galicia.
Therefore, in the photo reports of tourists, for some reason, you rarely find posing against the background of the Ivan Franko Lviv University, in the building of which the Galician Diet was held more than a hundred years ago.
Built in the style of the neo-Renaissance architecture of Vienna in the first half of the 19th century, in terms of its monumentality and pomp it is one of the most notable historical buildings in Lviv.
From Rynok Square to the university, you should go through Copernicus Street, so that at the same time you will not be photographed against the background of the majestic and also typical for Vienna Potocki Palace, where in Soviet times and until the end of the 90s there was a central registry office.
If you can get into the magnificent halls of the Potocki Palace only for money and with a guided tour, then at the entrance to the university the security guard may ask for a student ID. And on weekends, the university is usually closed.
But on weekends, the shops on the square in front of the university are free of students – and here you can spend hours enjoying the unhurried rhythm of real Lviv, free from tourist crowds.
If the sun is too strong, you can hide in the Ivan Franko Park, which is more than three hundred years old. Several oak trees have been preserved here since then.
ADDRESS: Universitetskaya, 1
To the university – under the guise of worship
Lviv universities are generally undeservedly deprived of the attention of tourists.
For example, the majestic building of the Lviv University of Life Safety, similar to a castle, is in no way inferior in spectacularity to the Chernivtsi University, which is the main tourist attraction of the capital of Bukovina.
The construction in the middle of the 19th century was brought together by the same architect as the building of the Austrian parliament and the Vienna arsenal. It housed the house of the invalids of Galicia, crippled in the wars.
The majestic building of the Lviv University of Life Safety looks like a castle
The main disadvantage of the university as an object for tourists is that it works behind closed doors, since it is subordinate to the State Emergency Service.
But, as the locals say, you can freely enter the courtyard of the institution on Sunday – by saying that you are going to church services. There is a chapel on the territory, which is also interesting as a separate piece of architecture in Byzantine-Greek forms.
The university is located relatively far from the center: half an hour walk from Rynok Square. However, if you are going on an excursion to the brewing museum in the basements of the Lviv brewery, then you are on your way. The establishment is located a few meters further from the plant, along the same Kleparivska street.
ADDRESS: Kleparevskaya, 35
Bright and colorful castles in the windows attract tourists to the candy stores on the side streets of Market Square.
Every chance to lure a tourist to one of the oldest districts of Lviv – Pidzamche and Rogatka – has another castle, a unique architectural structure with neo-Gothic towers and a tower. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century for a liquor factory. Subsequently, there was a winery, and even later – a vegetable base.
For several years now, this building has a fabulous view called the “Jam Factory.” There is an art center inside, where film screenings, master classes and performances take place from time to time.
In 2015, the house was bought by the Austrian historian Harald Binder, who plans to develop the center at a high level. Consequently, the noise of the pre-war period may return to this area again, when one of the departures to the city was here.
Now a tourist rarely visits Pidzamche, because the area has always been industrial, and for a long time it was generally known as a “gangster” one. Until now, out of habit, some realtors refuse girls from renting housing here, convincing them that it is dangerous to walk along the streets of Pidzamche and Slingshot in the evening.
The rental prices here are among the lowest in Lviv, the housing stock of old houses of the late 19th century is in a rather neglected state, so the area looks depressed.
Tourists rarely enter the Podzamche area.
At the same time, retrogrades protect the Podzamche region as the last island of old Lviv, “free from tourist invasion.” The fact that it has not yet been commercialized as a tourist is clearly demonstrated by soviet shops and cafes.
ADDRESS of “Jam Factory”: Bohdan Khmelnitsky, 124
Hundred Years Prison – Instead of a Dungeon Restaurant
If the goal of the Lviv weekend is not only to have fun, but also to study the history of the region, including its tragic pages, then the unique museum “Prison on Lontskogo” promises an unforgettable, albeit eerie impression.
Here, not only admission is free, but also excursions. There are no attractions on Lontsky, as, for example, in one of Lviv restaurants, where a disguised medieval executioner stuffs one of the guests of the establishment into the pub.
The unique museum “Prison on Lontskogo” promises an eerie impression.
But there will not be enough emotions in a real prison: the walls of the cells still retain the feeling of the times when political prisoners were interrogated, tortured and shot here. Among them, the most famous are OUN leaders Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko.
The prison was used by the Polish police, the German Gestapo, and the Soviet NKVD.
But the most terrible episode in the life of the prison is connected with the NKVD. In June 1941, leaving Galicia under the onslaught of Nazi troops, Soviet punishers shot about a thousand prisoners right in the cells and in the courtyard of the prison.
Across the street from the museum – the House of Organ and Chamber Music, with the largest organ in Ukraine. Therefore, classical melodies will help to return peace in thought after hearing in “Prison”.
ADDRESS: Stepan Bandera, 1
If in Paris thousands of tourists queue up to be photographed with the Mona Lisa, then in Lviv you need to wait in line to shove a hand in the pants of the Austrian writer Sacher-Masoch, whose metal sculpture with a “surprise” advertises one of the popular restaurants.
Thanks to the creative development of Lviv catering establishments, when a trip to coffee or beer turns into a whole attraction, a tourist increasingly makes a choice in favor of another restaurant rather than a museum. Moreover, the old museums in Lviv are frankly given away with mothballs and do not develop with the requirements of the present. Therefore, both for bread and for entertainment – a tourist goes to a cafe.
Therefore, part of the museums today is the place where it is relatively calm and deserted. Among them is the Lviv National Art Gallery.
This is, of course, not the Parisian Louvre, but it is the largest art museum in Ukraine, which contains unique paintings, sculptures, graphics and works of decorative art from Western and Eastern Europe.
Here you will never see queues, although the entrance ticket costs ten times cheaper than any European museum – 10 hryvnia.
Walking here from Rynok Square is a maximum of ten minutes. However, few people get here. The reason is trivial – the lack of bright advertising.
ADDRESS: Stefanyka, 3
Another institution from the category of “naphthalene” is the Ivan Franko Memorial Museum. The establishment is already 76 years old. And, to generalize, it seems that since that time nothing has changed, except perhaps the bulbs in the lamps.
But this is not a reason to deny yourself a visit to the house where the outstanding writer Ivan Franko lived and worked.
His piano and a work table are still preserved there, on which an authentic inkwell with a pen, books, a Hutsul knife for cutting papers, a candlestick, and a box for manuscripts.
It is worth coming here, at the end of the long Ivan Franko street, although it is easier to come by tram, and at the same time expand the idea of old Lviv. Here, in a green and noiseless space, villas, in which the Lviv elite lived at the beginning of the 20th century, are comfortably located.
Among them is the family of Mikhail Hrushevsky.
The house in which the future chairman of the Central Council of the UPR lived from 1908 to 1914 was located right next to Franco’s villa, so they often stayed with each other.
Now in the Grushevsky house there is also a museum; in 1998 it was a branch of the Franco Museum.
A few more villas further down the street are the current central registry office of the city. If you have time and inspiration, you can watch Lviv brides and local wedding traditions.
After visiting the museums and the registry office, you can return to the noisy center – or continue a calm journey in Stryisky Park, which rests on Ivan Franko Street.
ADDRESS: st. I. Franko, 152-154
The park, created at the end of the 19th century, is the largest in Lviv. Lviv residents come here to be photographed – with live swans, or in a greenhouse of tropical plants, or against the backdrop of artificial castle ruins built at the end of the 19th century.
Lviv residents come to Stryisky Park to be photographed with live swans
Another place for photo sessions is the new musical fountain “Ivasik-Telesik”.
In the warm season, a children’s railway runs along the perimeter of the park, the drivers and conductors of which are schoolchildren.
And also among the interesting objects – a monument dedicated to the first football match in Ukraine. In the century before last, there was a stadium where on July 14, 1894 the teams of the “Sokol” society from Lvov and Krakow met.
Then we played until the first goal. Lviv won by scoring the ball in the 6th minute.
Reception phone: +38 (067) 113-6767
