Moving on from Minsk, we caught a local bus (possibly from the 70s) to Niasviž, the place of a reconstructed 16th century castle, very attractive.

The Niasviž Castle, which is located c.110km south-west of Minsk was the family home of the Radziwiłł family, one of the richest and most important families in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We stayed in the "Palace Hotel" which is actually in the former stables and I think the rooms have a hint of the Soviet sanitorium that existed during the post WWII period, when the family was evicted.

The rooms in the castle were quite interesting (not as grand as those in the castle in Latvia), but we didn't realise there was an audio guide, so might have missed out on a bit.

We also had a fair amount of time to wander around the little town, and see all the sights (a couple of churches, a town hall and a old town gate) and meet many cats. We even had a castle cat. He was a sweet little thing, looked like he had been in a bit of a fight recently, shame that for his photo he lay in a picturesque manner in front of a bin.

We got great weather as we have been getting for most of this trip and the reflections on the castle lakes and moat were spectacular. Perhaps we have too many photos of reflections...

We were also in the area to see Mir Castle, another Radziwiłł family castle and another UNESCO World Heritage site, about 30 mins away, however this castle was ruined and deserted a lot earlier than the one in Niasviž.

Another attractive castle (and this time we had an audio guide) and we spent a good few hours wandering round... the audio guide was very detailed!

Interestingly they were filming a period piece in the castle court yard, so that was interesting.

The public transport is a little sketchy in this part of the country and there are not many buses between Niasviž and Mir we therefore caught a taxi to Mir in the morning, and then in the evening, thanks to Tripadvisor (so useful) we caught a local bus back to Niasviž in the afternoon.

We therefore had a bit of time for a wander round Mir, they clearly don't get tourists wandering around. As Luke asked at one point, "do I have two heads?".

Anyway we went into a catholic church in Mir. A lady started to speak to Luke in Russian (being English, he apologised politely and pointed at me), she asked where we were from, which I answered. She asked whether I spoke Russian, to which I could say, "a little bit", she then looked at Luke and said "He doesn't"... I agreed. She then said in stilted English that we were welcome to look around the church. Nice lady.

Belarusians generally seem a bit more friendly. Except the checkout ladies, they still look like they wish it was all over, and by being there with incorrect change, you are making it so much worse. Poor Luke (who holds the money) gets bullied quite regularly by these ladies into giving them the change he has been saving up.

All in all, most people come and see both castles in a day trip from Minsk. I'm pleased we stayed so we didn't have to rush round, but if we did it again, we might have stayed differently.

Once again, we were off to the next town in the far central west of Belarus, about 20km from the Lithuanian and Polish borders.

There was a single bus per day, and it was the same bus as the one to Mir, that all the day trippers get on. We therefore made sure we got there a bit early (Luke stressing that we would have to go back to Minsk and hire a car), and queued up (like Trip Advisor says) to the left of ticket counter 1. Behind me there were some young guys who asked me where the bus went and then where I was going. I answered and then apologised and said that I spoke English. They then laughed amongst themselves. So awkward. Turned out they spoke English, they were just dicks.

Anyway, we successfully caught the local bus, for local people, which according to the timetable took four hours, and actually took 6.5 hours! We saw lots of interesting little towns and drab regional centres, and stopped at these little bus stops on the side of the highway to let people off, but where seemingly there were no villages or towns. Really random. I think we were the only people to make the whole trip from Niasviž to Grodno.

(PS - if you want to see more photos of Minsk, I had too many, and therefore there is a separate post for them - just click back one)