Belarus Tour | Explore on of the hidden gems of Europe with Pyala Travel - Travel Program

Day 1 arrival Minsk

Arrival at Minsk National Airport, meet your guide and transfer to a hotel.
You will be welcomed and immediately get to know Belarusian cuisine. Together with a guide you go to a local restaurant, where you are offered a traditional meal. Of course you will eat one of the most famous dishes in Belarus - draniki (potato pancakes)!

And of course you discuss your journey for the coming days with your local guide.

Day 2 Minsk / local tour

In the morning you take a walk with a local guide that shows you more about the daily life of the people of Minsk, where do they drink something, where do they get their fruit and vegetables etc. Of course you also visit some of the most important sights from Minsk.
You see that Minsk is a city where the Middle Ages, the Soviet times and modern times come together to form the unique mix that Minsk is.

Minsk is definitely a developing and vibrant city. From a gray Soviet city it has now become a very pleasant city. Due to the political situation in Belarus, where as one of the few countries, the old Soviet elements have not been removed, but are still being restored, you can look here for the old Soviet past. Lenin still stands on its pedestal, the streets are still named after Lenin, Marx and Engels, the hammer and sickle are visible in many buildings. Along the Praspect Niezaleznasci (Independence Avenue) you will find an enormous amount of Stalinist architecture. And there are many monuments that recall the Great Patriotic War (the Second World War).

In the afternoon you can explore the city on your own. Tip; rent a bike and make a nice trip along the newly constructed bike paths that lead you through the city.

Day 3 Minsk - Nesvizh via Mir

Today you will discover two most popular Belarusian castles which are included to UNESCO World Heritage. You will go to Mir Castle which was built in the early 16th century in the Gothic style, but then it came into the hands of the famous Radziwill family who extended and refitted the castle in the Renaissance style. During the tour you will learn about the complex and sad history of this place and also try out some delicious Belarusian drinks!

After that you will visit Nesvizh Castle and its stunning park around the castle. This castle once belonged to the Radziwill family and is on the list of World Heritage Sites. It has been reconstructed, restored, and renovated throughout the years, and today it's a mixture of architectural styles (Renaissance, Classicism, Baroque, and Rococo, to name a few). There is a museum, a hotel, and a restaurant.This place is surrounded by legends, for example, the legend of Barbara Radziwill, ‘the black lady of Nesvizh’, who presumably was poisoned and now haunts in the castle.

You will stay for a night in a hotel right in the castle.

Day 4 Mir - Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park

You leave Mir for what is one of the highlights of every visit to Belarus, the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Natural Park. This park is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The park, located on the border with Poland, consists of the last primeval forests of Europe with oak trees of 500 years old and 250 different animal species. The most striking is the zubr, or the European bison, the largest mammal in Europe.
At the entrance of the park is a small museum dedicated to the history, flora and fauna of this park. There is also an animal park where you can see the animals living in the park.

If you want to explore the park yourself, you can take one of the walking tours, or rent a bike and follow a cycle route. You can also get a tour of the park by car.

If you want to see bisons in the wild, these are best spotted in the winter months. Then they come from deep in the woods more to the center of the park in search for food.
It is also possible (in the summer) to book an excursion with a forester (early in the morning), where you will search for grazing herds of bisons. This must be requested in advance.

You sleep in a hotel in the park. From here you can easily make the walking routes and / or cycling tours.

Day 5 Belovezhskaya Pushcha - Brest

In the morning you will go to Brest. Brest city is located near the border with Poland and is also quite closely located to Ukraine, combining three different cultures. There you will visit an interesting and big memorial Brest Fortress. It is a very important place for the Soviet resistance. It was built in the middle of the 19th century and became a Hero Fortress for the courageous Soviet soldiers during the fight against the German army in 1941. Nazi’s planned to seize the fortress in 8 hours, but it stood firm for more than 30 days.

In the evening you can walk along Saveckaja Street. It’s translated to English as Soviet Street, but for your surprise you won’t see there any Soviet reminders. But you can find there many cute shops, coffee spots and bars and in the evening you will witness a very special and old ritual of lighting the lanterns. You will stay for a night in a hotel in Brest city.

Day 6 Brest - Hrodna

Next destination of your trip will give you another eco-tourism experience. You will come to Augustow Canal - a hydraulic engineering installation from the 19th century. It’s a great place for doing some sport activities like hiking, biking, water tourism, and also just chilling out and enjoying the nature around. Also the canal crosses two landscape reserves - one of the most environmentally clean places in Belarus.

After enjoying a nature you will go to Hrodna city. It looks a bit different from other Belarusian cities because it wasn’t damaged as much during WWII and therefore many traditional buildings and narrow streets have been preserved. Take note of the many catholic churches, most of which were destroyed by the Soviet government after the war, but restored later. Belarusians like to come here for a weekend and walk around, because this city breathes the spirit of freedom and inspires great things!

Day 7 Hrodna - Zabrodye

You are going to a ‘dacha’! It’s a great chance to experience this unique and very Belarusian tradition from Soviet times. You will be able to properly clean yourself in this wooden sauna that we call ‘banya’, good food and drinks!
In the country houses people during soviet times could briefly escape the bustle of the big city, but also the control. They could also grow their own food and meet their friends and family freely and talk and cook together.

You travel to a dacha, about 95 kilometers outside of Minsk. This old farmhouse is located in the pretty village of Zabrodye, in the Vileika district near the Natochanka river. Here you can enjoy the traditional Belarusian country life. The owners try to keep this tradition alive and to preserve as much of the old habits as possible. Lots of attention is also paid to the past and the collection of nostalgia (think old furniture / kitchen utensils and Soviet cars).

History buffs will also enjoy themselves here. The farm is located on the old German-Russian front line from the First World War. Many artifacts have been found in the surrounding meadows and are now collected in a small museum. This museum is located in an old church and an old train carriage.
arach is the biggest lake in Belarus (79.6 km2) and also one of the most clear lakes in the country. It’s located in the National Park Narochansky and this area is a unique natural treasure and the largest resort region of Belarus. You will be able to spend a day outdoors and enjoy a beautiful nature! You can walk in a forest, swim in a lake, make a barbeque or do some sport activities.
For a night you will stay in a hotel right next to the lake.

Day 8 Zabrodye - Berezinski

Wake up peacefully in the morning. You can enjoy the rural life of Belarus for a while.

Next you drive to the Berezinski Nature Park. Many beavers live here and it is the park where one third of the total number of bears in Belarus lives. You will spend the night here in a hotel on a beautiful lake in the middle of the woods. You can visit the park entrance, with a nature museum, a small animal park. Here too you can rent bicycles to further explore the area. It is also possible to explore the park with rangers, looking for bears or beavers, but that must be requested well in advance.

Day 9 Berezinski - Polatsk - Vitebsk

Next city you will visit today is Vitebsk. Locals call Vitebsk the ‘cultural capital’ of Belarus for two main reasons: every summer (June-July) there is an international music festival called Slavianskiy Bazar which hosts a competition for young singers and songwriters and it’s also filled with famous artists. But also both famous painters Marc Chagall and his teacher Yehuda Pen were born in this very city! Additionally, the avant-garde Supremacist painter Kazimir Malevich, Russian artist Ilya Repin and many others were born here. It’s a nice city with many churches and a beautiful big Western Dvina River.

You will have enough time to discover this city and stay for a night in a hotel in Vitebsk.

Day 10 Vitebsk - Mogilev

You travel slowly southwards via the east side of Belarus. You will spend the night in Mogilev, located on the Dnepr river. This is one of the largest cities in Belarus and an important industrial center. Of course also here a large Soviet-like square (Sovetsetsaya square) with an impressive Soviet statue in memory of the Second World War. Connecting to the square is the Lenin boulevard, with the famous Soviet buildings along it.
There are various churches and monasteries to visit in the city.

Just outside the city is Buynichi, a place of remembrance for the great battle that took place here during World War II during Operation Barbarossa.

Day 11 Mogilev - Homel

You continue to Homel (Gomel), the second city of Belarus, situated in a beautiful area of forests and swamps. Homel lies on the eastern border of the Polesia region, an ethnographic region that stretches from western Poland through southern Belarus to Russia. The northern part of Ukraine (located around the Pripyat river) is also part of this.

Just outside Homel you can visit the village of Vetka, a center of the Old Believers.

Day 12 Homel - Khoiniki

You travel to the small town of Khoiniki. This town is near the border with the Ukraine and is the gateway to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the PSRER. The town itself is a typical Belarusian town, with Lenin in the central square still proud on its pedestal, the workers of the month are exhibited a little further on. In the town itself old apartment buildings with soviet slogans, interspersed with old wooden houses. As soon as you leave the town you will see the signs of old kolchozes and sowchozes (collective farms from soviet times).
In the town itself you can visit a museum dedicated to the Chernobyl disaster.

Day 13 Khoiniki / visit PSRER

On 26 April 1986 the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine) took place. One of the biggest nuclear disasters in the world, the consequences of which are still not completely known. At the time not at all. Initially, the administrators mainly responded in denial, but the seriousness of the disaster was soon recognized. The city of Pripyat and surrounding area was evacuated a few days later.

Now, more than 30 years later, Pripyat is becoming a tourist attraction (partly due to the HBO film about Chernobyl). It is therefore horrifying and fascinating to see, a step back in time. Abandoned ghost cities from the Soviet era in a desolate environment.

Much less known is the fact that Belarus was actually the major victim of the disaster, since the wind was pointing north and the nuclear reactor is located 5 kilometers from the border with Belarus. Most of the radioactive precipitation has ended up here.
Here too an entire area was evacuated, with dozens of villages. But only a few days later, they did not want to disturb the May 1st celebration. Then the inhabitants of the villages were told to leave the house for three days and to take only the most necessary things. The authorities knew that those people would never return, but were afraid that if they told them, the evacuation would be a lot harder.

This evacuation zone has become the PSRER, the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve.
Abandoned since May 1986. And, unlike Pripyat, only became accessible since the beginning of 2019. Here, too, a step back in time, overgrown villages, rusting away agricultural machinery, abandoned classrooms, concert halls where the memories of the last May 1 celebration are dusting, a rusting ferry that previously brought passengers to Kiev.

But also, one of the largest nature reserves in Europe. Because no people have been coming here for over 30 years, many wild animals have settled here. Bison, wolves, moose, deer, bears, lynx. This has become a unique area where nature has gained the upper hand over man.

The area is barely visited yet, less than 100 foreigners have been here in 2019. But just like Pripyat and Chernobyl on the other side of the border, it all has the potential to become a major draw. The radiation to which you are exposed during a visit of several hours is comparable to that of an intercontinental flight.

You make a day trip through this area, accompanied by a guide. You drive through the exclusion zone in an old Soviet van. You will visit a small museum, a few old vehicles used to combat the disaster, various (overgrown) villages, old factories, the old port, collective farms, an old school, the culture house, a watchtower (with a view of Chernobyl). It is a memorable experience to travel through this disaster area, taking a step back in time.

The memories of the last May 5 celebration from 1986 are still visible in the cultural center. Old Soviet pamphlets, slogans, banners are the silent witnesses of this last celebration. Two days later the inhabitants were evacuated.

You will spend the night in Mozir, an hour's drive from the PSRER.

Day 14 Mozir - Minsk

You return to the capital of Belarus. You can also take a walk in the morning through the city or in the area by the Pripyat river. Afterwards you drive straight to Minsk, a journey of about four hours

Day 15 Minsk

A final day oo explore the city on your own.
For example, visit the impressive Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Or do you prefer to choose from one of our unique excursions (see excursions tab) that show you special aspects of Minsk, but also of the surrounding area. For example, take a canoe trip through Minsk, a wonderful and active way to explore the city.

Or visit the Stalin line, an interbellum line of defense.

Looking for hipster Minsk? Then go to Oktiabrskaja street. A neighborhood with old abandoned factories, now filled with breweries, trendy cafes, mobile restaurants and art galleries. You will also find a lot of street art here, many walls are painted with beautiful murals.

Day 16 depart Minsk