offpeakfang

Belarusian Railways runs several firmeny (higher-quality) international sleeper trains to neighbouring countries. One is the "Beliy Aist" - the "White Stork"  - from Minsk to Kiev.  The departure board in Minsk railway station, including trains to Moscow, Kiev and Riga. The display cycles between Russian, Belarusian Cyrillic, and Belarusian Latin script.  Minsk railway station has two ticket offices, one either side of the main entrance. The one on the left of the entrance is the long-distance ticket office, where we had bought our tickets to Kiev a couple of days before. International cards are accepted.  There was no ticket barrier or check on the station concourse and no queue or crowd waiting to get on when the boarding time came - only an announcement in Russian without much actual movement of people in the waiting room. When it was time to board, we simply walked down the bridge to the platforms where our train was waiting. We were in the last carr...

When we arrived into Minsk from the airport, the airport bus dropped us off at the main train station. We bought our tickets to Kiev for two days later while we were there, but by then it was late in the evening and we needed to go to our hotel. We went by the Minsk Metro, which became one of the first sights we saw in Belarus. The 0.60 BYN (£0.21, €0.25) flat ticket price was the second best thing about the metro; the best of all was definitely the socialist-realist design and architecture. Not a sight often seen any more - completely preserved from the opening of the metro system in 1984 The main train station is served by "Ploschad Lenina" metro station, meaning "Lenin Square". Well, it certainly made a strong first impression. Bust of Lenin, in Lenin Square station Our visit in Minsk only began in earnest the next day, where we walked around the city centre. We did, however, take the metro to the national library - which involved going through th...

Nesvizh Castle, Belarus Nesvizh Castle and Mir Castle are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites and are two of the main attractions to visit in Belarus. Both are good half-day trips from Minsk and are close enough together to make an excellent combined day trip, yet there seems to be little information available on how to visit either other than by guided group coach tours run only in Russian.  Instead, this page will detail how we visited both comfortably in one day.  Mir Castle, Belarus Visiting the two castles involved an early-ish start from Minsk: a local bus to Minsk Station, then the elektrichka local train to the village of Gorodeya (Russian:  Городея ) whence a connecting bus to Nesvizh village would depart. There were several possible train services that we could have taken, but the best for us was the 0818-1015 elektrichka, train 6805 which continues onward to Baranovichi.  Minsk station has two ticket halls, either side of the main entra...

Elektrichka to Mir and Nesvizh, Belarus This blog is dedicated to the joy of travelling through unusual, historical places.  Many destinations have become so tourist-focused that they no longer have any sense of real adventure. Instead, let us rediscover the excitement of exploring places less travelled.  These foundational principles underpin all that we do: Travel gives us much-needed context for the world around us.  Disneyland is nice and all, but it's not real.  There's no point in going to Benidorm and spending your evenings in the English pub, watching Premier League football.  A view from a train window gives a much more authentic view of what a place is really like:  rural and urban, rich and poor.  Using public transport like a local is a much better experience than a hire car.  There's little point in getting London/Paris/Rome souvenir mugs or keyrings that have all been mass-produced in some Chinese fac...