Minsk to Moscow

It would have been nice to be able to say that I was traveling all the way from London to Hong Kong overland, but I am cheating between Minsk and Moscow, and flying.

I just needed to workout how to get to Minsk airport first.

A taxi to the airport is 40€ and the bus is 2€ - So bus it is.

We asked the girl in the hostel to write us a note which said something along the lines of "please can we have two tickets to the airport on the 8.25 bus, on 30th June". We had walked through the bus station numerous times on the way into the city so thought we were set.

We got to the bus station and checked all the bus stops but couldn't see where the 300E stopped. We also couldn't see the ticket office which we thought was a bit strange.

We went to see the woman at this counter. We gave her out bit of paper. She read it twice. Looked confused, shook her head and gave it back.

Минск

The main chose to go to Minsk was because it was directly between Warsaw, the last stop on my Interrail pass, and Moscow, the departure point on the Trans Siberian Trip.

I quickly discovered it is not a typical tourist destination. In fact it is not a tourist destination at all, at least for British people. First of all you need a visa, to get a visa you need a letter of invitation from a friend or relative in Belarus. (I don't have one of those) or a tourist agency (I don't have one of those either). So I got a 48 hour transit visa, this came at a cost, which meant that this was going to be an expensive 48 hours.

On trip advisor when you search for things to do in Minsk there are 27 suggestions. Compare this to my last city, Warsaw, which has 92 Suggestions and my next city, Moscow, which has 903 Suggestions.

The advantage of visiting a city with doesn't have a huge tourist industry is that no one is dictating what you see and you see the place as it actually is. Not a marketed and packaged version full of tourists.

Minsk has a feeling of space; the roads are wide and quiet, there are lots of trees and parks and there is no litter or graffiti.

Warsaw to Minsk - My first sleeper train

My first sleeper train and the first country on this trip that requires a visa. Could be interesting....

Ok... Good start, I have a ticket. Well I hope it is a ticket as I can't read a word on it and it cost me 250 zloty

The train is on the board and I see I have to go to platform 2.