Kiev in 3 days

Golden Gate (Золоті ворота — Zoloti Vorota; Volodymyrska 40a; the main triumphal gate of Yaroslav the Wise's Kyiv (the gate was one of four main gates of the Yaroslav fortification of 1037 — modelled on the Golden Gate of Constantinople)); the original gate (a massive brick and mortar arch 25m high with the Church of the Annunciation on top) survived until the Mongol destruction of Kyiv in 1240; the ruins (the original masonry of the gate arch was excavated and consolidated in 1977) are encased in a protective modern reconstruction (built 1982 for the 1500th anniversary of Kyiv's mythological founding) that protects the original fragments. The small museum inside has original floor tiles, architectural fragments, and a scale model of Yaroslav's Kyiv. Adults UAH 80. The Yaroslava Val street (the ancient fortification ditch) leads from the Golden Gate to the Saint Sophia Cathedral complex (5 min walk).

Podil (Поділ — the historic lower city of Kyiv, on the Dnieper flood plain below the upper cliff city; the commercial district of medieval Kyiv (the Varangian trade route from Scandinavia to Byzantium (the 'Varangian to Greek' route — the most important long-distance trade route of early medieval Europe, running from the Baltic through the Dnieper and Black Sea to Constantinople) passed through the Podil river port)); the Podil architecture: primarily 18th–19th century (the medieval Podil was destroyed by fire repeatedly and rebuilt; the current streetscape dates from after the fire of 1811 that destroyed most of the district); the Kontraktova Ploshcha (Contract Square — the historic trade square of Podil, with the Contracts House (1817 — the venue for the annual contract fair that was the central commercial event of Right-Bank Ukraine) and the fountain of the 'Samson' (1749, restored); the Kyiv Mohyla Academy (Академія — Skovorody 2; one of the oldest universities in Eastern Europe (founded 1632), across from Kontraktova Ploshcha)). The best restaurant street in Kyiv: the Podil neighbourhood around Kontraktova Ploshcha has the most concentrated and diverse restaurant scene.

Saint Volodymyr Cathedral (Собор Святого Рівноапостольного Великого Князя Володимира — Bulvar Tarasa Shevchenka 20; built 1882 in the neo-Byzantine style (the Russian imperial style for major Orthodox churches); the interior was decorated by the most important painters of the Russian imperial academic tradition: Viktor Vasnetsov (the murals of the nave and the apse — including the famous Virgin Orante image in the vault, the Old Testament prophets along the nave walls, and the monumental Christ Pantocrator in the dome, painted 1885–1896), Mikhail Nesterov, and Mikhail Vrubel; the interior of St. Volodymyr's is the finest example of late-19th-century Orthodox religious painting in existence (more complete and better-preserved than the Isaak's Cathedral in St. Petersburg or the Temple of Christ the Saviour in Moscow)). Named after Prince Volodymyr the Great (958–1015) — the Grand Prince of Kyiv who adopted Christianity as the state religion of Kyivan Rus in 988, baptising the population of Kyiv in the Dnieper (the Christianisation event that shaped the entire subsequent cultural history of Eastern Europe). Free.

Dnieper (Dnipro) River cruise (the Dnieper is the 3rd-longest river in Europe (2,285km), flowing from the Smolensk region of Russia through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea; the Kyiv section of the Dnieper is 1km wide (the river is dammed upstream at the Kyiv Reservoir (1965), which has dramatically raised the river level in the city section — the pre-dam Dnieper was much shallower)); the evening cruise (from the River Station (Poshtova Ploshcha pier, accessible by metro to Poshtova Ploshcha station): 1.5-hour evening cruise departing 19:30 and 21:00 from May–September; ticket UAH 300–400): the cruise passes the Kyiv Podil embankment (the green-wooded Kyiv hillside reflected in the water), the Dnipro Islands (Trukhanov Island — a recreational island with beaches and parkland, accessible year-round but particularly beautiful from the water), and gives the best view of the Motherland Monument (Батьківщина-Мати — the 62m stainless steel monument of a woman holding a sword and shield, erected 1981 on the Pechersk cliff above the Lavra — the tallest statue in Ukraine and the most recognisable landmark of the Kyiv skyline).

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС — 130km north of Kyiv, accessible by guided day tour from Kyiv (the only legal method of access; tours depart from Kyiv Maidan area 08:00–09:00 and return 19:00–20:00; price approximately USD 90–150 per person depending on operator)). The April 26, 1986 nuclear accident (Reactor No. 4 of the Chornobylska Nuclear Power Station exploded during a safety test (the combination of a design flaw in the RBMK-1000 reactor (positive void coefficient — meaning the reactor became more reactive as it heated, a fundamentally unstable design) and operator error during the test led to an uncontrolled power surge that destroyed the reactor and released approximately 400 times the radiation of the Hiroshima bomb)). The sites visited on a standard day tour: Chernobyl Town (the administrative city, now inhabited only by rotating Exclusion Zone workers and 'stalkers' (illegal visitors)), Reactor No. 4 and the New Safe Confinement (NSC — the 36,000-tonne steel arch structure built 2011–2016 that now covers the destroyed reactor), Pripyat (the purpose-built city for 50,000 nuclear plant workers, evacuated in 36 hours on April 27, 1986 and never reoccupied — the abandoned city (with its famous Ferris wheel, the school gymnasiums with scattered gas masks, and the football stadium overgrown with trees) is the defining image of the Chernobyl disaster)).

National Art Museum of Ukraine (Національний художній музей України — Hrushevskoho 6; the most important fine art museum in Ukraine; the collection covers Ukrainian visual art from the 12th century to the present): (1) The Icon collection (the Ukrainian icon painting tradition is distinct from the Russian (Moscow) tradition: the Ukrainian icons (particularly from the 16th–18th century Cossack period) use brighter colours, more naturalistic figures, and a stronger Western European influence (from Polish Baroque painting, which filtered into Ukraine through the Kyiv Mohyla Academy artists)); (2) the Ukrainian Romantic and Realist painting (Taras Shevchenko — the national poet who was also a trained painter, educated at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg; his portrait paintings and romantic landscapes are in this collection); (3) the Ukrainian modernist collection (the Boichukist school and the Ukrainian avant-garde of the 1920s, before the Stalinist suppression). Adults UAH 120.

Pyrohiv (Пирогів — National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine; Shevchenka 1, Pyrohiv village, 12km south of central Kyiv; accessible by metro to Lybidska + bus (marshrutka); the largest open-air architectural museum in Eastern Europe: 300 authentic traditional buildings relocated from all ethnographic regions of Ukraine (the Polissia, Sloboda Ukraine, Poltava, Podilia, Volhynia, Zaporizhzhia, Hutsul, and Bukovyna regions each have their own architectural traditions, gathered here in a 150-hectare landscape setting): farmhouses, churches (the distinctive Ukrainian wooden churches with their multiple ogival domes — different in form from both Russian onion domes and Western European spires), mills, and the summer craft demonstrations (the Poltava pottery (the black-fired earthenware), the Hutsul wood carving, and the Petrikivka decorative painting (a Ukrainian folk art tradition of flower-and-bird ornamental painting, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage)). Adults UAH 120.

Kyiv Art Nouveau (the Shchekovetska Street area and Lypky neighbourhood have the finest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings in Ukraine, built 1900–1914 during the rapid growth of Kyiv as the commercial capital of the Russian imperial South): the Horodetsky House (Bankova 10 — a 1902 Art Nouveau building with a façade decorated with sculpted lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, and sea creatures (the building's owner was Vladyslav Horodetsky, an eclectic architect and big-game hunter who incorporated hunting trophies into the building's ornament); the most photographed building in Kyiv after the Lavra and St. Sophia). T.H. Shevchenko National Park (Shevchenka Boulevard — the long linear park with the red-granite monument of Taras Shevchenko (1939, by sculptor Matviy Manizer); the chestnut trees of the park are at their most dramatic in spring (late April–early May — the white chestnut blossoms over the wide park boulevard); the park is the outdoor social centre of the Kyiv university district. Final dinner on the Andriyivsky Descent or Podil.