4 Museums in Lviv

Today I’m making a round-up of 4 Museums in Lviv. There will be 2 more posts with museums, but these 4 were smaller and they can be grouped together. All these 4 museums are a few minutes from one another. It took us about an hour to visit each one of them, as we did not spend too much time reading all the display boards in each room. We wanted to get the feel of the museums instead of looking deeply at the exhibits on display.

Pharmacy museum is lovely and unusual. It’s a guided tour, with the guide dressed in a special costume. The tour starts at the back of the modern pharmacy with a short talk on the history of the place. It is very interesting.

The floor is original to the building, which is impressive considering how old it is, about 200 years if I remember correctly.

After the tour on the ground floor, we went into the secret pharmacy, where we saw a movie about the place, which was very nicely done.

The guide said that she can’t show us a real snake, but we made this “growing” snake by setting alight some pills. It was fun. We took pictures afterwards.

At the end of the tour we had a quick chat and the guide told us that her husband is on the frontline. It was chilling. She was so great, laughing, joking, doing her best to give us a lovely tour, and genuinely happy to show us the museum. I hope our words of encouragement brought a bit of comfort to her. I noticed in the museum a flag of a military unit, so it must be the unit her husband is in. Very chilling experience indeed.

Underground of Sts. Peter & Paul Garrison Church is a museum we passed by and decided to enter to have a look around. There was a tour in Ukrainian while we were there and I think it would have been interesting.

We had a map to guide us.

I haven’t seen religious charms displayed like this before. Considering their importance for the people who owned them and how beautiful they are, I think this kind of mounted display is best. It’s also much easier to admire the details on a white background at eye level and in a glass display case.
The boards did not have an English version, but this was from the 12th or 13th centuries.

Glass museum is another small museum in the city centre that we passed by and thought it would be worth visiting. It’s a free flow museum and it is really interesting to see. There is a history of how glass is made before seeing the old and new exhibits.

I loved this wheat glass sculpture. Its name is: Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie. Of course, for a country which is both religious and has a clear memory of their past and the famine of 1930s, wheat is central to their remembrance and identity.

There are a few rooms to explore.

Another highlight was this gorgeous glass teddy bear, by a Japanese artist.

Lviv History Museum is a few metres away from the Glass museum and it is in Lviv’s Rynok Square, a place where there are lots of shops, restaurants, and other museums as well.

This is a 19th century chair. I love how unusual it is.

I think the English word for it would be a stove? It is a common form of heating in Eastern Europe. Unlike the open fire favoured in UK, this is much more efficient.

Italian courtyard looks wonderful. There were some merchants from Venice based in Lviv. I think in the summer there is a cafe there, but we went in April.

I mentioned this special exhibition before. It is dedicated to the defenders of Ukraine, with all except one being alive and some of them still serving in the military.

I enjoyed visiting all these museums, some I had no idea about before going to Lviv. There are 3 more I visited, which will be shared in 2 posts, and there are a few more I will visit next time I’m in Lviv.