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| 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.
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Mir Castle, Belarus
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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 entrance. The one on the left of the entrance is for long-distance trains (where we had bought in advance the day before our tickets to Kiev for that evening), while the one on the right is for local elektrichka services like our train for today. Both accepted my contactless N26 Mastercard. Public transport in nearly all the ex-USSR countries is very, very cheap - this 100 km journey cost us a whole 2.10 BYN each, buying at the station on the day.
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The very, very Soviet elektrichka train from Minsk to Gorodeya and on to Baranovichi. Built in Soviet Latvia, in a country that no longer exists. The Republic of Latvia is now a EU and NATO member.
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2.10 BYN (£0.74, €0.88) for a 100 km journey through the pine and birch forests of western Belarus. For comparison, the cheapest rail ticket in the UK is Lichfield Trent Valley to Lichfield City: £0.80 for 2 km.
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Gorodeya station: What's a footbridge?
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A connecting bus no.15 goes from the front of the station to Nesvizh town centre. The train arrives at 1015 and the bus leaves at 1030, giving us plenty of time to buy our bus tickets from a window inside the train station for a whole 1.47 BYN (£0.52, €0.62).
Nesvizh bus station is the final stop on the bus route. Walking to the front of the bus station, the route to Nesvizh Castle wasn't well signposted at all, despite this UNESCO world heritage site - one of the main sights in the country - being only a 15 minute walk away, with the wonderful Baroque frescoes of Corpus Christi Church on the way. It was a testament to how Belarus really doesn't get many tourists. It was definitely a good idea to pre-cache the local area on Google Maps on my phone, especially given the absurd mobile data roaming charges in this non-EU country.
Your patience, though, is rewarded with a Baroque castle of the Radziwiłł aristocratic family of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Built in 1582 on the foundations of an existing medieval castle, it's an excellent example of a princely residence of the Polish-Lithuanian and Prussian nobility. The castle towers are even topped with black eagle weathervanes, a symbol of the family's princedom in the Holy Roman Empire. Entry tickets are only 4 BYN (£1.41, €1.68), and grant entry to the palace interiors.
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| Nesvizh Castle, inside courtyard. Yes, it's Christmas time. |
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| Main entrance over the moat. Obviously castles are better with moats. |
We went around exploring the palace interiors through the numerous separate entrances around the castle, but after a couple of hours we returned to the bus station in the town centre to buy our next tickets to Mir castle.
The bus no.113 leaves Nesvizh bus station at 1426, but tickets only go on sale at the Nesvizh bus station ticket window at 1400. This bus cost 2.24 BYN (£0.79, €0.94) with a journey time of around 1 hour to Mir village centre, with Mir castle itself visible when the bus gets to the village. It's then a short 5 minute walk from the tiny bus station to the castle gates.
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| Mir Castle |
The tickets for entry cost a whopping 16 BYN (£5.63, €6.71), but include four separate sites in the castle - the interior exhibition, the western tower, the castle ramparts and prison, and the Chapel just outside. The castle interior exhibition takes around an hour, but that's just one part of the complex - climbing up the tower ramparts was a particular highlight, with narrow passageways and spiral staircases with very tall steps going up the towers. By now, there was just time to visit the chapel of the Światopełk-Mirski family before it became completely dark.
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| Światopełk-Mirski chapel |
There is a bus back to Minsk running every evening at 1930 from the bus station in Mir town centre, but we still had a couple of hours before then and so we decided to have dinner in the town. We went to the "Doroga Zamkov" restaurant on the main road, with its rather hidden entrance on the back of its building, for a reasonably-priced, excellent Belarusian dinner.
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| Stewed potato as a side. |
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Stewed beef, mushroom and potato served in a clay pot. The restaurant gets very good reviews, and deservedly so.
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It was soon time to return to the bus station for the 1930 bus back to Minsk. There's a bank branch next to the bus station with an outside ATM as well, which was useful given that the bus driver only accepted cash - the journey cost 5 BYN, given to the driver who just gestured for us to sit down without giving us any actual paper ticket. The journey took around 1.5 hours and brought us back to the main bus station in Minsk next to the train station, with plenty of time spare before our sleeper train to Kiev later that night.
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| Back to Minsk station in good time, directly facing the city gates. |
All in all, it had been a good day trip from Minsk - sunrise over the birch/pine forests, two UNESCO world heritage sites with plenty of interesting history, and an excellent Belarusian dinner. I can fully recommend this as a day trip - everything had run like clockwork, and if you would like to follow this itinerary for yourself then a summary is below.
Summary itinerary
- Minsk - Gorodeya: Train 6808, 0818-1015, 2.10 BYN
- Gorodeya - Nesvizh: Bus 15, 1030-1100, 1.47 BYN
- Nesvizh Castle entry ticket: 4 BYN
- Nesvizh - Mir: Bus 113, 1426-1500, 2.24 BYN
- Mir Castle complex combined entry ticket: 16 BYN
- Mir - Minsk bus: 1930-2100, 5 BYN
Date: Tuesday 26th December 2019
Total: 30.81 BYN (£10.76, €12.94)
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