
WILD MUSHROOMS, CURED PORK & PICKLES: EXPLORING UKRAINIAN FOOD
Last month we were lucky enough to take an amazing food tour to Ukraine with Experience Ukraine and the chef Olia Hercules. Olia is a Ukrainian chef, now living in London. Her passion is preserving the traditional recipes of Ukraine and the surrounding region, by visiting home cooks, documenting their dishes and then bringing these recipes to a wider audience. I have a couple of Olia’s beautifully written books about Ukrainian food and had cooked a few of her recipes both fr

Transcarpathia, Ukraine
Our journey began at the Kiev train station in Ukraine. We were catching an overnight sleeper train all the way down to Mukachevo, a city in Transcarpathia. Feasting on an overnight train is crucial to anyone travelling in any country through Eastern Europe. It’s one of the best experiences and we started this trip with a feast like no other. With layers of cultural influences and flavours of historical movements, Transcarpathia (also known as Zakarpattia Oblast) is a region

Money exchange in Ukraine.
Most of us are so used to travelling to European countries that use Euros we‘ve forgotten what its like to travel somewhere with its own unique currency. But part of the beauty of our unique, tailor made holidays is that you are travelling somewhere unlike anywhere else in Europe. Ukraine has its own currency, the Hryvnia or UAH. The exchange rate is roughly 35UAH to the pound. You can check the latest exchange rate at the National Bank of Ukraine. Many of our travelers are u

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year of adventures with Experience Ukraine🎁🎄
I can't believe that we are nearly done with 2017 and in just a few days we are all going to be relaxing and celebrating Christmas in style.
We had a very busy year and I wanted to thank you all very much for your ongoing support. We held a big fundraising event at the beginning of 2017 to support a number of projects in Nyzhnie Selyshche, Transcarpathia. This included helping build the Sargo Rigo Guest House in Nizhnee Selishche for groups to stay in and supporting the Yout

Lizhnyk Weaving Tour May 2017
Impressions and Memories The weaving is what brought us to Ukraine, but our holiday brought far more adventure, steeped in another life, another time and place, than any of us had quite expected... Before our arrival, the warm mid-May sun had already brought out the orchids in the lush carpet of grass and flowers which surrounded our wooden hideaway. The sound of the racing river water rushing under and through the felting house below met our ears as we gathered to eat on t

A day with shepherds!
A day with shepherds by Anastasiya Zolotarev Photo by Anastasia Zolotarev
We hiked all day through hills and forests for this cheese and local shepherd in Transcarpathia! Definitely the hardest journey I've ever made to taste incredible cheese! We were greeted by the shepherd and his friends and family and then had an impromptu feast of wood fired pork rilette, raw onion (spring onion), bread, salo, a stew of goat (I think from memory) which I assume was also cooked in thei