"Seeing" Novogrudok

As I’ve said, I want to figure out how to visit interesting places in Belarus that I haven’t seen yet. After a few web searches, I’ve got a little list of places I’d like to reach. I’m not sure whether Novogrudok had gotten onto the list, but Tanya suggested it and it looked pretty good on the internet. It’s about three hours from Minsk, so we resolved to spend the night there. A nice hotel room with two beds costs about thirty dollars, so it seemed like a reasonable idea.

Before booking the room, however, I checked another site, which suggested that we should stay “nearby” at Alpha Radon. My neighbor had told me that Alpha Radon was her favorite place in all of Belarus and Booking.com was telling me that they were offering me their last room, so I jumped on it without thinking much. It’s more than thirty bucks, but it includes three meals for two people and I had wanted to see it anyway. It’s great, but it’s way too far from Novogrudok for a quick excursion. It worked out fine, but we didn’t end up seeing much of Novogrudok.

Long boring bus ride

We passed through Novogrudok the first time on our way to the resort. I figured we were almost there and expected to see it around every turn. There were lots of turns, but we didn’t arrive for another 45 minutes or more. It’s OK. There’s plenty to do at Alpha Radon, at least for a couple of days. We went directly to the dining room for lunch, where I over-ate in my efforts to try everything that looked interesting. Then we headed out for a walk around the grounds.

We found our way into a small wood visible from the dining room and took lots of pictures. Mostly Tanya took the pictures. She’d just bought herself a fancy camera and wanted to make good use of it. As you will remember, she can’t see what she is photographing. Amazingly, she takes a lot of very interesting photos. She has a good intuitive sense of where she might find something interesting and then she shoots lots of frames. Sometimes I help her, but she does quite well on her own. Her friend Kristina helps her sort through the photos and choose which ones to publish. I think her Instagram feed will be extra busy for the next few weeks as they go through the weekend’s work.

After our photo expedition, we repaired to the Alpha Radon aqua zone, where we swam laps in their large pool and visited the sauna and steam room. We met an interesting Israeli lady in the sauna, who said that she and her husband came to spend a week in the woods, since she tired of the seashore where she lives. They’d been out walking for about four hours that morning, and at the time I couldn’t imagine where she’d gone.

We found the big woods on Sunday after we’d checked out. There are trails, a couple of lakes separated by a dam, beaches, docks, and lots of fun things to do. Somehow, we hadn’t learned about this, but the weather hadn’t been so great that we missed anything. But it makes the resort much more appealing. I could imagine spending more than a couple of days there now, especially for cross-country skiing or beach and swimming. When I asked the receptionist about what to do, she only told me about things she wanted to sell, like medical treatments and spa services. It seems kind of funny now.

Anyway, we got to Novogrudok on Sunday afternoon and had about three hours there before the last bus left for Minsk. That was enough time to walk around the old city center, enjoy the views over farmland and valley below, stroll through the park, eat a quick meal and come to understand that we’d have to come back and see the town properly.

Day trip to Zaslavl

On my way back from Vilnius, the train took me alongside a cute little town. I whipped out my phone and asked Google Maps to tell me where I was: Zaslavl. I’d been there once before in my student days but didn’t remember it very well. Since it looked cute and I wanted to see more of Belarus, I decided to come back, and I invited my Belarusian daughter, Tanya. I planned far enough ahead to learn that the trains run so often that one can basically show up at the station whenever he wants to go there, and we agreed to go on the following Monday. Fortunately, however, Tanya did a little research and learned that the museum would be closed on Monday, so we postponed the trip until Saturday.

We had a great time. Once we figured out how to get the tickets and where to catch the train (the ticket lady was none too helpful), we got to Zaslavl in about half an hour. We decided to start with the museum, which we found easily despite the crazy V-shaped route Google Maps thought we should take. Our direct route took us to the back entrance, which proved convenient because there was only one docent running the whole museum and she was out with a group. She invited us to join her group and we started the tour from the middle. We made our first stop at a grain mill, the central feature of the museum. The other people on the tour were sisters whose grandmother had owned such a mill. They explained to us in detail how everything worked and took pictures of us near the grinding wheels.

From the museum, we found our way along a delightful stream to the entrance of the city’s other main historical attraction, one of two very old churches. It’s a beautiful building with a fine garden, protected by a tall earthwork covered with wildflowers. We explored all viewpoints before picking our way to the other church, which needs maintenance and is not open to visitors. We didn’t mind, however, because we had a nice walk on a nice day and the birds overhead made us feel as cheerful as they sounded.

Finally, we set out to find lunch. Or dinner. We debated about asking our phones where to eat, but then I spotted an actual human being, who told us how to find the nearest (and possibly only) options. There was a wedding going on at the restaurant where she sent us, and the waitress admitted as we left that she felt a little frazzled running the bar and serving the wedding as well as the restaurant guests all at once. We hadn’t noticed that she was frazzled, however. We were sitting in a nice room with a pleasant view out the window and occasional sightings of the wedding party dancing and making merry. Everybody seemed happy and we enjoyed our meal at the same time.

I was ready to go home after the late lunch. We’d had such a wonderful day that I figured we were more likely to wreck it by plunging into the new part of town than to extend our pleasure. Tanya felt optimistic, however, so we went. I picked out a route parallel to the main street, and it felt positively rural. I could see traffic parallel to us, but we walked alongside beautiful yards in a modernized Belarusian village. We had a great walk, saw nothing in particular, and walked back by a slightly different route. The birds continued to chirp, the sun continued to shine, and we continued to enjoy this fine little town.

I look forward to finding more of these little gems. It’s easier to have fun outside of Minsk than I imagined.