Dniester rafting on catamarans (6 days)

The group meets in Ternopil at the railway station. Transfer to the river: on the way we stop in Buchach at the ruins of the Potocki castle (14th-17th centuries) on a rocky spur above the Strypa. Then comes the village of Nyzhniv, where the Dniester Canyon is only beginning to deepen: steep walls of purplish slate are already visible here.

On the bank we assemble the catamarans, load the gear and go through a safety briefing. Then we push off. The first stop downstream is Koropets, where a river of the same name meets the Dniester. Count Stanislaw Badeni's palace stands here (rebuilt 1893-1906 in a Viennese Renaissance style) in a park of exotics, including old ginkgo trees. The house itself has long been unsafe: the dome collapsed in 2013, so we look at it from outside, not as a museum.

Night in tents on the bank. Tents, sleeping bags and mats come with the tour.

We continue downstream along both banks of the canyon. From the water we walk up to a medieval cave church in the cliff above the Dniester (a hermitage near Rakovets; dating ranges from the princely era to the 13th-14th centuries). The cells are cut into limestone and are easy to miss from the river.

Next is the Divochi Slozy (Maiden Tears) waterfall between Isakiv and Petriv: water seeps over a travertine block above the Dniester and really does look like tears. In May 2019 the main overhanging block collapsed into the river; the place is still there, but it no longer matches the old photographs. Traces of a hermit's cave remain in the rock nearby.

Above the river stands the watchtower of 17th-century Rakovets Castle (a national monument). Of the irregular quadrangle with several towers, the eastern tower and a scrap of wall survive; there used to be a Dniester crossing here. Night again in tents.

We paddle to the mouth of the Strypa. From there we climb Chervona Hora (Red Mountain) near Beremiany: Devonian sandstones stained with iron oxides really are red, the cliffs stand in terraces, and from the top you see the Beremiany canyon and a Dniester bend. The slope rises about 150 m above the river.

The microclimate is among the warmest in the Ternopil region: a south-facing slope heats the rock quickly, and snow on the summit rarely lasts more than a day or two even in a hard winter. Locals call it the Dniester subtropics. On the slope is the Beremiany cliff-steppe botanical monument: feather grass, irises, rock steppe.

Between Beremiany and Sokilets two wooded knolls stick up above the water - Velyka and Mala Hovdy; in the 1930s there was a shelter here for river tourists. Night on the bank.

We continue on the left bank. Two neighbouring canyon sites: the Khmeleva Wall (the Khmeleva plot of Dniester Canyon National Park) and the shore by Shutromyntsi. The slope above Khmeleva is a steep left bank of Devonian outcrops, meadow steppe and pheasant's eye. A ravine of the Khmeleva stream drops a cascade of waterfalls 6-8 m high.

By Shutromyntsi on the left bank are the Dorohychivski cliffs, a geological monument. Between Shutromyntsi and Lytiachi, on the village boundary, is the Pechery waterfall; if time and water level allow, we land and walk in. This is one of the most tightly pinched stretches of canyon on the left bank: the river runs under a wall, not through a wide valley.

Camp on the bank. Tomorrow is a rest day, so the bags need not be packed for a full move.

Rest day: we leave the catamarans in camp and walk into the Chervone tract between Nyrkiv and Ustechko. The Dzhuryn (Chervonohorod) waterfall on the Dzhuryn river is Ukraine's highest lowland waterfall: three cascades, about 16 m high and up to 20 m wide. It is probably artificial (the old bed was cut for a mill); the popular story that Ottoman troops in 1672 diverted the river to put the castle on an island is not borne out by the sources. A mill stood on the cascade until the 1950s; a small hydro plant ran briefly after that.

A ten-minute walk away are the ruins of 17th-century Chervonohorod Castle and the traces of the vanished town of Chervonohorod. Beside them stand the walls of an 18th-century church. The dry old Dzhuryn bed still reads as a loop around the castle hill.

A swim in the lower cascade is optional, weather allowing; the stones are slippery. In the evening we return to the tents on the Dniester.

Last day on the water. We paddle to Zalishchyky: the town sits on the left bank in a meander bowl that the Dniester almost rings, with slopes around it rising to 300 m. It was once a climatic resort and a wine centre of interwar Poland.

In town there is a park (the former Brunicki estate, with a large ginkgo among the trees) and the 19th-century church of St Stanislaus. After we pack the catamarans, a transfer takes us to Ternopil. If time remains, we can stop at the castles in Chortkiv, Terebovlia or Mykulyntsi; that is a spare plan for a free window, not a promised call.