Kiev

Kiev is a great city. Don’t know why more people don’t go there — it would certainly make a good companion stop to Prague.

It feels Western European (Paris or Barcelona or wherever). The main street is beautiful in day and night, surrounded by expensive shops, big Ukrainian flags and monuments, and various squares and social mingling places.

The underground caves — where saints from centuries are supposedly still buried — is one of Kiev’s most popular attractions and is indeed quite interesting. Hot, stuffy, dark, but fascinating. Since Ukraine has loads of religious folk and religious visitors, people are constnatly kissing the pictures of the saints which hang overhead the bodies.

The WWII memorial — or, as they call it in Ukraine/Russia, "The Great Patriotic War" — is well done.

There are a bunch of ethnic restuarants in addition to local Ukrainian fare. We ate at a Japanese place one night to mix it up and the sushi was solid.

Best of all, Kiev is relatively cheap for a big city, so you can explore and eat and travel like you can’t in western Europe.