Ivano Frankivsk

Peter's parents are from a small place close to Ivano Frankivsk (IF) so we decided to go there.

IF is about 130 km from Lviv. The landscape we passed from Liviv to IF is as nice as the road is terrible. I tried my best to perform kind of potholes slalom with the car. Still we experienced an extreme kidney massage.
On the way to IF we passed Rogatyn - the birth place of Roxolana. She is a daughter of an orthodox priest and as young girl was captured by Tatars and taken as a slave to Constantinople where she was chosen to join the Sultan's harem. She was a swift operator in many areas. She quickly became Sultan's - Suleyman the Magnificent - favourite in the harem. Than she was freed from slavery (in harem) and became the legal Sultan's wife. In this new position she also doubled as the Sultan's foreign affairs adviser and for some time secured Ottoman-Polish peace. Her son Selim inherited the Ottoman Empire. For more about her see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxelana

In Rogatyn we found Cola Light.

IF is small, charming city. As experienced tourists our first stop was a tourist center. There we met Elena who offered to be our guide. It's always nice to have a local guide so we warmly accepted her offer. Soon we realized Elena is very popular with the locals. She new many people we passed. She told us she knows all the night clubs in IF. We understood she knows almost all foreigners in the town. She also briefed us on local practices (cheating in marriage seems to be a local sport; one can easily buy exams at the IF schools and university). Elena's mother works in Italy. Once Elena graduates at the university (tourism) she wants to go to US.
Elena wanted to shows us the lake close to IF but I prefered to slalom road potholes in the daylight so we left shortly after lunch.
Pity about the lake but it's always good to leave something for the next visit.