# Castles of Volyn: A 2-Day Route from Lutsk to Ostroh > Castles of Volyn on a 2-day route: Lubart's Castle in Lutsk, the Radziwill palace in Olyka, Dubno with Tarakaniv Fort, Klevan's Tunnel of Love and Ostroh. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/zamky-volyni/ - Language: en - Published: 2026-11-01 - Categories: Culture, Historic Sites, Museums, Tours, Ukraine, Castles --- The **castles of Volyn** in northwestern Ukraine fit comfortably into a two-day road trip: Lutsk, Olyka, Klevan, Dubno and Ostroh line up along one route, with less than 150 kilometres between the endpoints. This is one of Ukraine's most underrated castle regions: Lubart's Castle in Lutsk has survived better than most fortresses in the country and appears on the 200-hryvnia banknote, while the Radziwill palace in nearby Olyka still slips past most travellers entirely. ## Lubart's Castle in Lutsk: the anchor of the route Lutsk's Upper Castle went up from the mid-14th century under the Lithuanian prince Lubart, and it is that rare Ukrainian case of a medieval fortress reaching us nearly intact: the full circuit of walls and all three towers still stand. The entrance tower, the one on the banknote, rises over 20 metres and can be climbed: the stairs are steep, but the top rewards you with the old town, the Styr river and the domes of the cathedrals. Inside the walls sit several museums: books, bells, architectural ceramics, and the underground remains of the church of St John the Divine. You do not need to see them all; the towers and ramparts justify the ticket on their own. Condition: excellent, a well-kept museum reserve with a ticket office, regular hours and events from festivals to night tours. Budget two to three hours for the castle plus the old town, and note that the evening illumination here ranks among the best in Ukraine. The surrounding quarter fills another hour or two: the Lutheran church, the fortress-like Great Synagogue, the Orthodox Holy Cross church and the Jesuit monastery cellars beneath the church of Sts Peter and Paul, open with a guided tour. ## Olyka: a Radziwill palace waiting to be rescued Forty-five kilometres from Lutsk lies the town of Olyka, once the seat of the Radziwills, one of the mightiest families of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Their palace complex was built as a fortified residence with bastions, and in its prime it rivalled Nesvizh for splendour. From there the story runs without embellishment: through the Soviet decades and until quite recently the palace housed a regional psychiatric hospital, and the building has come down to us in a neglected state. The complex is now being handed over to museum authorities and slowly tidied up, but that is a project measured in years: there is no proper interior access, so what you see are the courtyard, the bastion earthworks and the outer facades. It is still worth the detour, and here is why: across the road stands the 17th-century Trinity Church, the Radziwill collegiate church, with carved facades and the family crypt. It is one of Volyn's most valuable Baroque churches, gradually under restoration, and together with the palace it forms an ensemble that exists nowhere else in the region. Olyka is a stop of an hour or ninety minutes, no ticket office, no queues. ## Klevan: the Czartoryski ruins and the Tunnel of Love The road then heads for Rivne, passing through Klevan. Little remains of the 15th-16th century castle of the Czartoryski princes: an entrance tower with a bridge, wall fragments and earthworks, all preserved as a stabilised ruin with no museum. Honestly, the castle alone does not justify a special trip, but it works as a 30-40 minute stop, especially with the handsome Annunciation church nearby, itself under slow restoration. The real reason to stop at Klevan is different: a few kilometres away, near the village of Orzhiv, runs the **Tunnel of Love**, a green corridor of trees arched over a working railway branch for several kilometres. The tunnel photographs best from May to August, when the foliage closes into a solid vault; in autumn it turns into a golden corridor, in winter it is simply bare branches. Remember the line is active: trains do pass, however rarely, so act sensibly on the tracks. ## Dubno: a castle above the Ikva, with a fort next door Dubno Castle, built by the Ostrozky princes and later held by the Lubomirskis, sits on a promontory above the Ikva river: bastions, a deep moat, two palaces inside the perimeter and cellars with exhibitions. Condition is good; this is a working reserve with museum halls, though the restoration is cosmetic in places and the palaces look plainer outside than in the old engravings. The castle endured the 1648 siege by Kryvonis's Cossacks and features in Gogol's Taras Bulba, a fact the locals put to enthusiastic use. A bonus for fortification lovers: a few kilometres from town, in the woods near Tarakaniv village, lies **Tarakaniv Fort**, a colossal earth-and-brick stronghold from the late 19th century. This is no castle but a multi-level labyrinth of ruins, with no tickets and no wardens. It looks staggering, but be careful: the underground galleries have partially collapsed, and going inside without a torch and company is a bad idea. ## Ostroh: the Ostrozky castle and the academy The final point of the route is Ostroh, ancestral seat of the Ostrozky princes, the uncrowned kings of Volyn. On Castle Hill survive the Masonry Tower with its museum, the fortified Epiphany church and the round New Tower. The complex is compact, no match for Lutsk in scale, but the history carries it: here in 1576 the Ostroh Academy was founded, the first institution of higher learning in Eastern Europe, and here Ivan Fedorov printed the Ostroh Bible. The modern academy still operates in town, and the museums hold early printed books. Condition: a well-kept museum site, with two to three hours covering the whole town. ## The 2-day route: how does it fit together? DayStopsDrivingTime on siteDay 1Lutsk: Lubart's Castle and the old town, Olyka in the afternoonabout 50 km4-5 hours in Lutsk, 1-1.5 in OlykaDay 2Klevan and the Tunnel of Love, Dubno with Tarakaniv Fort, finishing in Ostrohabout 150 km1-2 hours per stopOvernight in Lutsk or Rivne: Rivne makes the better base for day two, since Klevan, Dubno and Ostroh all sit around it. The route is possible without a car but loses flexibility: trains and buses serve Lutsk, Rivne, Dubno and Ostroh, while Olyka and the Tunnel of Love are hard to reach by public transport and call for a taxi combination. ## What should you factor in before the trip? - Museum hours currently depend on the security situation: during air-raid alerts the castles close their entrances and move visitors to shelters. Check current hours on the reserves' pages before setting out; for Lutsk that is the official site [zamok-lubarta.com.ua](https://zamok-lubarta.com.ua/). - Plan the day so you are back at your accommodation before curfew, as intercity roads empty out in the evening. - Tickets everywhere are inexpensive; castle entry costs about as much as a coffee and dessert, with towers and cellars charged separately. Cash comes in handy in Olyka and at the smaller ticket desks. - Bring proper walking shoes: castle stairs are steep, Tarakaniv Fort stays muddy even in summer, and the Tunnel of Love is a dirt-path walk from the parking spot. The Volyn route earns its keep through contrast: a full-blooded museum in Lutsk, an aristocratic ruin in Olyka, a romantic railway in Klevan, Cossack history in Dubno and scholarly Ostroh as the finale. Two days, five eras and no crowds: most of these places still live outside the main tourist flows, and now is exactly the time to see them.