Looking back in my notes I planned to do Ukraine 2015-2017 but already in September this year, I was pratically on the doorstep to Romania.

Thus, I am almost half way to the Mediterranean. Another 1200 kms to go! A piece-of-cake it seems now having more than 1000 kms behind me. Who knows?
Ukraine was without sensation. But yes of course,my starting point in Uzhok behind special border Control was a spectacular part of the Carpathian Mountain Range. To get there I needed in fact two days of travelling by air, rail and bus.
Göteborg-Warszawa by Wizzair. Always realiable carrier. Rambling downtown waiting for the night train leaving at midnight for Przemysl. Here, first class single coupe is still the right way to travel. Woke up passing the regional capital of Rzeszow. Everywhere in Poland and certainly here railroad infrastructure is on the move. New double tracks, new crossings, new stations for regional public rail services.

Ukraine. Stretch no.8. cont'd.

Saturday 19 September 2015. Day 1.

Passes in the Carpathian Mountains often hit 900 m.a.s.l., as here, a couple of hours south of my starting point Uzhok. Looking almost straight to the south, no traffic but millions of sharp stones nearly penetrating my soft shoes.

Sanity is usually quite satisfactory in the town and village as well as along the roads. PET bottles are collected in recycling centers, which in a village can be like this plain construction. 

In Poland - the main roads being in perfect conditions - glass and plastic bottles and containers were abundant along the B-road tossed out of the car windows. 

In Ukraine the road sides are normally in good condition: no garbage, but the roads are in a terrible state. The traffic is zigzagging to avoid all the pot holes. 

Many families had gathered for the weekend working the land or repairing their houses. At 3 p.m. temperature was down from +30°C to around a more pleasant +20°C and I began to fancy the overnight place in Zhdenijevo. In Roztoka I spotted these bee hives. 

                                     

In the most remote and modest village you will find spectacular new orthodox churches in white and blue colours with golden cupoles and decorations like here in Roztoka.

Today's surprise. - Where am I to stay overnight? I showed my www.booking.com print with the address Selo Pashkovtsy 19,Zhdenevo. to a man in the street, where this church of wood and tinplate roof stood, in the village of Pashkovtsy, whereas the center of Zhdenevo, the second part of the address, was a further five kms down the road. - You just passed it, the man said in Ukrainian.

I turned back 50-100 meters and entered this building which looked like a simple but solid place to stay overnight. Some sort of a combined youth hostel and info centre for the adjacent nature reserve, I believed. But it turned out to be only a centre for the Forest Agency. 

My encounter with a Saturday afternoon drunk unhappy family man did not change that fact. Sorry, he failed to show me the right house another 100 meters up the road. I got annoyd and walked on until I got a lift in a car to Zhdenevo. It turned out to be a rewarding mistake. Instead of a private house, here I could stay more comfortably in a hotel with restaurant. The night brought a storm with millions of lightenings and thunder.

to be cont'd

Thursday 17 September 2015. Stretch no. 8.

Getting to the starting point on the Ukrainian side of the Polish border took me two days of travelling.
 
After a mere 1,5 hour flight to Warszawa Chopinska Airport, I strolled for the rest of the day the streets of downtown Warsaw taking an espresso double at Intercontinental Hotel, eating a generously stuffed pizza

on re-opened Swietokrzyska street and...

having a late coupe of thé and a muffin at the Green Caffe Nero...

 on Aleja Jana Pawla II, where I was mazed by this giant wall art

and near the train station these to giant buildings, one a quite new geometric construction and...

...the other, Palace of Culture, a donation by a neighbouring country after WWII.

before I finally could border the night train for Przemysl departing at midnight. 

Friday 18 September 2015. 

Ukraine is a big country of large distances especially between east and west as this map clearly shows. Most areas are lowland east and west of the important river of Dnepr. Only in the very far west, the Carpathian mountains you will find altitude above +1000 meters. 

To find MY ROUTE of walking through Ukraine look for the shortcut between the south-east corner of Poland and the north-west corner of Romania. 127 kms. Less some kms by bus and hitchhiking I walked probably less than 100 kms, When temperature was not above +30°C it was raining.

The sharp part of the Ukrainian -Polish border stems from a end of WWI dividing line proposal called Curzon after the then (1919) British Foreign secretary Georges Curzon. As can be seen from the map below After WWII the Soviet Union claimed a further piece of land that had belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for centuries  -  and to the Czechoslovakian Republic between the two WW  -  but which was extremely strategic for SU's access to its new buffer states. 

Border crossings between Poland and Ukraine are not many and there is none in the very corner where I ended my walking in May. Thus, I needed first to head east by bus and then catch the night train from Lviv to Solotvino (= the end station that happended to be my prime goal for this stretch on the Romanian border). There was some confusing moment at the Przemysl PKP bus station as to which bus I should get on to. No one really spoke any other language than Polish or Russian or Ukrainian. But in one of the buses I tried a man promised to bring me across the border and to the train station at Sambir. At Medica border crossing we left the bus and simply walked across passing controls in five leaving Poland and five minutes entering Ukraine. The car, truck and bus lanes were endless and it would probably have taken many hours to get through sitting in a vehicle. At Sambir I had to wait another seven hours for the night train that ultimately brought me to Volosyanka. Met by the Recreation Complex Uzhanski Kupeli we had to get cleared through this off border control post.

Saturday 19 September 2015. Day 1.

A bright morning. A road in the mountainous landscape of much beauty and no traffic. I am free. Again.

to be continued...  :)

Here, you will soon find my report and some images from my latest walk towards the Mediterranean (Thessaloniki, Greece).
17 Sept. Bus to Vänersborg train station. Train to Göteborg. Wizzair to Warszaw. Waiting downtown for the night train to Przemysl.

18 Sept. Wakening in Rzeszów. Arriving in the morning i Przemysl. Full summer: +25° and more.

 

Friday 14 May 2015. Chrewt-Polana to Chmiel. Late afternoon.

After 25 kilometers and more than seven hours of walking the dogs were a bit weary. Here they wait for another two or three raisins or cashew nuts. They did not need much...   

 

At last, River San. Separating two bear and wolf areas. 

Springtime sparkling. Cherry trees. Almond trees. Apple trees. Like fireworks in the green.



 

At the end of the day I was worried that the dogs would tread on the tar from the on-going roadwork. Plate sized spots all over the road. We had to zigzag...

 

Finally, we reached Chmiel and my Agroturystyka for the night. Since the dogs did not volunteer to return they were simply tied to the owner's iron fence. They did not object. Four hours later a woman came and fetched the dogs bringingand them back to the vicarage in Polana. The priest was said to be elsewhere all evening...

 

In this area, south of Ustrzyki Dolne, and at this time of the year, tourism is not yet there and accommodation of any kind, hotel or agro, was hard to find. The previous night in Polane I was denied paying for the dinner (delicious soup and chicken), for the room, for the breakfast - it is "gratis", they said. Thank you, Babicia and family Pietrowicz!

Now, in Chmiel, the situation is again normal in this respect. For dinner (delicious soup and dumplings), for room, for breakfast I paid 100 zloty.

 

 

The fire I was allowed to make in the evening from birch and beech wood was a true









 

The breakfast. The big jar is not with applesauce but  ...HONEY! :)

 

Excellent treatment. Thanks Macjul and Josefa! 

 

Bye, bye, my dear doggy friends!

 

 

Tisdag 5 maj. Hästskovägen. Mulet men vindstilla.

Bara tandborsten återstår att lägga ner i ryggsäcken sen färdigpackat, 6 kg. Buss 65 från Mariedalsskolan och tåg från Trollhättan till Göteborg fvb Landvetter och med Wizzair i eftermiddag till Warszawa. Hotell bokat.

Nära till det nyöppnade judiska museet Polin imorgon (www.polin.pl).

Sen vidare tidigt torsdag morgon med tåg och buss via Lublin till Jaroslaw och vandring 21 km söderut mot Przemysl som jag når på fredag efter ytterligare 24 km. Lagom inledning på min sjätte och sista etapp i Polen. Något jag ser fram emot.

Hoppas få kommentarer under vandringen från mina följare!

It cannot wait. I just need to put these pictures on display.

15 May. From the Pietrowska family in Polana village (Chrewst) through the Hulskie Nature Reserve to the village Chmiel in the River San valley. All the way some, 28 k, these German shepherd dogs a male and a bitch (wrong vocable for such a beauty...) followed me, guarded me. Indeed, as of a miracle, they offered me a long walking day with much comfort. What were their secrets? I was told that they were owned by the priest in Polana.Not even wearing collars.  ???

 

 

 

The area is wild and practically empty of habitation, people and traffic. Although half way into the mountain between the valleys we met with Ania and Lukasz, working for the Lukowiska's forest revier. And soon after, to my surprise, we faced two black persons - and I mean black - they were charcoal burners. Totally black. I was so stunned that I forgot to ask for their permission to take a picture. What a pity.

 

 

 

 

Having walked up the hills for three four hours the dogs seem all too happy to turn back to their village. We are soon entering the Hulskie Nature Reserve with many restrictions. Certainly stray dogs (they don't wear collars) are not permitted or any dog for that matter. When a fallow or red deer crossed the road a hundred meters ahead of us, the dogs had already felt the scent and flew, when they saw it, like rockets into the Wood. But. What could I do? They are not my dogs.



I was asked to be alert if there were bear babies around. If so, the bear mother could prove a real danger to both me and the dogs. Let's see what we soon would face.

 

 I the soft forest road, suddenly, I spotted this foot print. A bear?
Well, why not - the size and the shape of it? More to come...

 In the wet muddy ditch dirt an unmistakable trace of a bear. No doubt. And fresh.

 No close encounter with the bear. Good outcome. We have reached the road along the river San and my watch dogs can take a rest. 



 Here we met two men from Gdansk who seemed to have no idea about the true wilderness that they were in.

 

I hoped that the dogs should walk with them back to Polana but, no, they fancied me and we soon walked on.

 

 

 to be cont'd