A day trip to Nesvizh and Mir Castle
While doing my research on Minsk, I quickly realized that a day trip visiting the castles nearby was a must and choosing to travel by public transportation would make the trip even more of an experience. Traveling by car will save you time, you can even fit it all the three castles nearby, but I highly recommend traveling by train and bus. We tried both.
It’s a fun experience traveling in a country where you not only don’t understand the language, you don’t even understand the alphabet. We chose to take the train to Haradzieja, then a bus from Haradzieja to Nesvizh. The train ride was nothing like I’ve ever experienced. It was an old train, just stepping onto it took me back in time. We found some available seats and were ready for a soviet train ride.
Not long after departure, local people came across the carts with merchandise. One lady sold socks and purses, while another guy was selling big hunting knives. Funny enough, people bought these things. I mean, how convenient! You can do your shopping while traveling.
The train was also a nice way to see some of the Belarusian countryside. The train took us through a beautiful green landscape, with charming and cozy houses along the tracks. Belarus in general has a very green landscape. Natural vegetation covers 93% of the land and 1/3 of all green landscape is forest (www.belarus.by). It is such a beautiful country.
Arriving in Haradzieja, we bought bus tickets to Nesvizh. There is basically nothing close to the train station, just fields. So here we were, two Norwegians, waiting for the bus in the Belarusian country side.
The bus stops at the Nesvizh bus station, which is 20 minutes walking distance from the castle. Make sure to stop by the Catholic Corpus Church on your way!
Nesvizh Castle is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered the country’s most beautiful palace by the people of Belarus. The architecture, the gardens and the lake surrounding it, makes it one of the most popular tourist attractions in Belarus.
Leaving Nesvizh Castele, we could have waited for the bus to Mir Castle, but we didn’t bother, so we took a taxi. We payed 30 BYN for the 30 minutes ride from one UNESCO World Heritage Site to another.
It’s quite a strange feeling, visiting a beautiful castle, the perfect tourist attraction and being almost the only ones there. This is something I truly love! Being able to explore beautiful places without the tourist crowds, just wander in peace.
The way back to Minsk from Mir is a funny story. Since there’s basically no tourist there, the location of the bus station is something only the locals know. It doesn’t exactly help that we don’t even understand a word of the language. We walked around the little town, which is almost the size of a roundabout, but we couldn’t find the bus stop. We couldn’t even find a place that looked like a bus stop. We started to walk all the possible directions and were about to go crazy, not being able to figure this out. Luckily, we found a young couple that knew how to use Google translate and had a couple of minutes to spare.
If you’re ever in Minsk, make sure to make a day out of these two castles.
