• Discover Kyiv, both the ancient cradle of Russian civilisation and the city from which the Orthodox faith spread throughout Eastern Europe. The extraordinary Golden Gate of Kyiv is the last remnant of the 10th-century walls built to defend the city.

• Explore Kyiv's religious heritage at the Caves Monastery. This ancient institution is the focal point of the early Orthodox Church. You'll need to carry candles to see the church relics, which are set in a maze of spooky catacombs. 

• See the 11th-century St Sofia Cathedral, which contains splendid icons and frescoes and is situated in beautiful grounds. The Cathedral of St Vladimir is the headquarters of the rival pro-Ukrainian church.

• Enjoy a spot of culture at Kyiv's Opera House, the Museum of Ukrainian Art (with its collection of the work of regional artists from the 16th century to the present) and the Historical Museum of Ukraine. 

• Marvel at the stunning Western Ukrainian town of Kamyanets-Podilsky, a medieval stunner set on a tall rock outcrop that has beguiled travellers for centuries and was famously described as ‘a stone flower on the rock' by poet Lesya Ukrayinka. 

• Discover gorgeous Lviv, an open-air museum of extraordinary architectural wealth. The Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is centered on the glorious Market Square, stuffed full of dazzling gothic, baroque, Renaissance and rococo buildings.

• Relive the world's most famous cinema scene in Odessa, the site of the famous Potemkin Stairway from Sergei Eisenstein's film, Battleship Potemkin. Odessa is the country's most cosmopolitan city, with a thriving Jewish population and boundless confidence.

• Make a trip south to Yalta, the ‘Pearl of the Crimea'. Nearby is the Livadia Palace, where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in 1945 to reshape the map of Europe, and where the tsars spent their summer holidays before the Bolshevik Revolution.