Kiev

Ukraine is a tough country - in the last few years there has been a revolution, a downed plane and there are ongoing issues with Russian. I clearly didn't do my research or I may have been a little more apprehensive when we landed in KBP - Kiev's international airport, and sought out Vladimir our taxi driver. We were there for the Eurovision song contest 2017. The drive into town was quiet Vald knew little English and I little Ukraine - we smiled and pointed at a few things. First impressions of Kiev were welcoming - though it had dark undertones - I got the feeling if you wanted to pay to have someone bumped off you should have brought them with you. I had Téa with me - my favourite daughter.

Kiev to be pronounced like Keith with a speech impediment - where "th" is "v". yep that easy, was wet and not that welcoming as a city. The hotel was very nice - I think we could have stayed there a lot longer and it is somewhere where I would be very tempted to go back to.

Beer and food in general was cold and cheap - I liked the chicken kiev's - I had 2 and many many more beers. I gave 5 euros to the porter, and I guess that was enough for him to take his family out for a slap up meal with lots more beers if the hotel prices were anything to go by.

The Eurovision contest was good - some observations on no particular order;
- very camp
- nice welcoming crowd, all on good form
- not many drunk people
- lots of over excited people
- lots of Brits and Irish - but a good all round collection of flags
- the winning song was a bit pants
- the variety of songs was fabulous
- the horse and gorilla were the only weird there

We walked a lot. My feet still hurt. We took the Metro out to the exhibition hall for the contest - some 10km. It cost the equivalent of 20p each way.

I've included some photos - last is the best.Read more