Picture a railroad track running into a forest, and the trees closing in so tightly overhead that they form a perfect leafy tube. Sunlight filters through the green walls, and the rails seem to vanish into a storybook passage. It sounds like a scene from a movie, but it's a real place in western Ukraine.
The short answer: the Tunnel of Love is a stretch of working industrial railway near the town of Klevan, in Ukraine's Rivne region. Trees on both sides arch over the tracks to form a long green tunnel. Since trains pass only about three times a day, it has become a favorite spot for couples to take walks.
A Factory Line With a Romantic Side
The rail line itself is anything but glamorous. It starts at Klevan station on a main line and runs to a fiberboard factory in the northern part of the neighboring village of Orzhiv. The whole line is about 4 miles long.
About 3 miles of the line passes through forest, and that's where the tunnel is found. Depending on how you measure it, the tree-covered section stretches roughly 2 to 3 miles. In Ukrainian, it's called Tunel Kokhannia, the Tunnel of Love.
Because trains run so rarely, walkers can enjoy the quiet green corridor. The spot is photogenic enough that a Berlin publisher released a whole photo book titled In the Tunnel of Love in 2018.
An Old Town in Volhynia
Klevan itself is a small settlement of about 7,500 people in the historic region of Volhynia. Its roots reach back to the early 12th century, when a settlement was founded on the banks of the Stubla River.
The town has a long and dramatic history. A castle was started there in 1454 by Michał Czartoryski, a member of a powerful noble family, and the family later built a church that became one of its burial places. In 1654, the king of Poland granted the town special rights and established its fairs and markets.
Tree Tunnels Around the World
A tree tunnel forms wherever trees on both sides of a road, lane, or track grow into a more or less continuous canopy overhead. Some are planted in neat rows. Others form naturally along rural routes.
One of the most famous is the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland, an avenue of beech trees planted around 1775. It shot to international fame after appearing in the TV series Game of Thrones. The road has been closed to regular vehicle traffic since 2017 to protect the trees' roots. The trees were planted to create a grand approach to a family estate. Now roughly 250 years old, only about 75 of the original 150 remain.
Americans have their own version. In northern Michigan, a stretch of highway M-119 along Lake Michigan is known as the Tunnel of Trees Scenic Heritage Route. The narrow road, with no center line for much of the way, winds through oaks, maples, birch, and cedars along an old Ottawa trail.
A Path Worth Walking
There's something about a tunnel of trees that makes people slow down, hold hands, and take pictures. Maybe it's the soft green light, or the feeling of stepping into another world.
Ukraine's Tunnel of Love proves that beauty can turn up in the most ordinary places, even along a factory railway. Just remember to listen for the train.
