Minsk Day 2

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We did not sleep well. The room was uncomfortably cold by now and since it can only be operated by the reception desk we just suffered. After sunrise Clay got up and opened the balcony door. The day started chilly so that didn't really help. The bathroom is a hazard with a raised, deep tub with a shower behind a half glass shield. Water everywhere plus slippery and dangerous when exiting. Otherwise it is in a great location. Breakfast buffet was extensive and impressive with local specialties. I had a big warm cheese Danish thing and a yogurt and cappuccino and a water. Clay had a lot of eggs and meat and I don't know what else.

We had booked a private Minsk City Tour for today through Viator. We paid $100. Our guide was Kristina Bugaenko. She had a new Ford with AC. She spoke English very well and did an excellent job. I can highly recommend her. We feel much more positive about Minsk now than we did yesterday at this time. We spent from 9:30 am to about 12:30 pm with about half walking and half in the car. She met us at the hotel so we first walked Upper City or Old Town where we're located. There are a lot of Orthodox and Catholic churches here. One is the oldest standing building in Minsk, Peter & Paul. There is a grocery store right behind it! Clay has my sore throat now and I have lost my voice. Clay wanted to buy hard candies to suck. We wound up with a bag of cherry hard candies with jammy centers. Bonus. The closest church to us has a 15th century icon that supposedly was thrown in a river in Kiev and washed ashore here in Minsk. The church was built to house it in the 17th century. We went in but didn't find the icon which is the basis for the city seal. We thought we knew what to look for and lined up at every icon with a line, but didn't find it. We drove Winners Avenue to see all the enormous sports venues. We saw Island of Tears and walked Trinity Suburb where Kristina briefed us on local dishes and told us there were 2 restaurants adjacent to last night's Chinese place where we could find some of them. We stopped at Independence Square and saw the parliament building behind a giant Lenin statue. We drove the entirety of Independence Avenue with its 4-km of Stalinist Empire style buildings and monuments and other important buildings and parks. We saw the National Library building and Minsk's newest church. I bought a patch with the Gate of Minsk which we saw today. I bought a handmade red and white cross-stitched bookmark that reminded me of the Belarus flag which I couldn't find in a patch. We learned that the modern era of tourism in Belarus dates from some international games they built all the sports arenas for and ended the tourist visa program. Now anyone can enter Belarus for up to 30 days without a visa. That meant doubling their hotel room capacity and building 30 casinos! It seems it is an hour flight from Moscow and they treat this like Vegas and they love gambling and it is the closest place for them.

After Kristina returned to the area of the hotel we walked one of the streets of cafes and shops looking for ice cream for lunch. We didn't find it but Clay found a place wrapping foot long hot dogs with slaw and ketchup in big tortillas and panini pressing them. He loved it. Sorry I didn't catch the name of it and it isn't on Google Maps. It was a stand on the sidewalk a block from our hotel.

We came back to the hotel and took another nap. We went to Draniki for Belarussian food for dinner. Sorry that there is no website to link.

We have our return half of our Viator transfer back to the airport at 10:30 am for a 1:30 pm Belavia flight to Kiev tomorrow. We checked in online this afternoon and got the aisle seats on row 10 this time. Hopefully this flight will be as easy as the last one. I guess there is no time change this time as we are scheduled to arrive in Kiev at 2:30 pm.

Finally, thanks Mom for our new rolling duffel bags. They've had 3 flights now and still like new! Love them. Thanks again for our useful Christmas presents as this is the first time we've used them.

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