A compulsory element of any trip is a journey by train. This morning we are travelling from Kyiv to Lviv. It’s an early start to get into town for a 6 am departure. The train is way nicer than in the UK; it’s extremely clean and modern with tv screens and a trolley service with excellent sandwiches (chicken, cheese, pickled cucumber and dill mayonnaise – a winning combination). The journey to Lviv takes 5 hours. There’s some initial jostling over the blind; the person in front thinks it should be closed. She’s wrong. Half the fun of a train ride is watching the world go by, so it’s not a battle I’m going to lose. I win (obviously) and get to enjoy a spectacular sunrise over the city before we plunge into the forest. 5 hours ... read more

Today we have our own personal tour guide (Tom has kindly offered to show us round, despite a broken foot). We start at Rodina Mat – a huge statue depicting the motherland with a war museum at its base. The design is similar to Minsk’s Museum of the Great Patriotic War, only here the museum, entitled: Ukraine, an unfinished War, tells a far less pro Russian version of events. Outside, from a row of 3 Soviet tanks, one has been painted in the colours of the Ukrainian flag and turned to face the others. The Motherland statue depicts a lady holding aloft a sword and shield. You can take a lift and climb a series of ladders up 36 metres to a viewpoint at the bottom of her skirt or climb a further 64 metres of ... read more

Our time in Belarus is almost over. It’s time to head towards the airport. We check out of our Soviet era hotel with one last journey in the terrifyingly jolty lift. The drive to Minsk is basically 240 miles along one long, straight, flat road through mile after mile of flat fields with occasional flat woodlands. It’s so dull I find myself longing for hills – a rare occurrence in my world. After 3 hours, we break the journey at Nesvizh Castle, a picturesque 16th Century castle surrounded by a moat. Inside is a museum charting the castle’s history. The floors are a mixture of polished wood, marble, tiles and silk rugs which all need to be negotiated whilst wearing plastic bags on your feet. Health & safety isn’t a thing in Belarus. Afterwards, we continue ... read more

After a bad night’s sleep (a combination of the potato pancakes and sleeping next to the main railway line from Moscow to Europe, with freight trains thundering by every few minutes) we get up and go for breakfast. Surprise, surprise it’s pancakes. Add some jam – call it breakfast. I google potato consumption and am not surprised to see that Belarus has the highest per capita consumption in the world. After breakfast we set off for Belazkaya Plushcha National Park. It’s only 80 miles, but Google Maps takes us on an interesting cross country route which involves less tarmac than is ideal, but enables us to see plenty of rural Belarus. We reach the park around midday. Outside of Minsk, very few people speak English but I get by with my few words of Russian combined ... read more

One of the many things I love about the EU is its stance on smoking; throughout half a continent it is unacceptable to smoke in public. To remind yourself of how good this is, travel to the other half of Europe which smells like a 1980s British pub carpet. The non-smoking Hotel Minsk is one such location – there is so much smoke oozing through the ventilation system that you need breathing apparatus to go for a pee. The morning is filled with complicated simple things. First, I want to find a supermarket and buy a bottle of Diet Coke. According to Google Maps, the nearest supermarket is 43 feet away, but it refuses to give directions. At first, I think this must mean that it’s in the underground shopping centre, but a full search of ... read more