Well it wouldn’t be a trip without a hiccup would it now? When planning this trip originally, one was going to fly from Vilnius to Minsk rather than catching the train but soon opted for the latter simply for ease. During the train booking, I completely forgot (until this morning when one was checking everything) that in order to enter Belarus without a visa (as of 2019), you must fly in and out of Minsk International Airport. If you wish to travel over the international borders via any other means, you still need to obtain a visa prior to your trip otherwise face deportation, little contradictory to the word ‘visa free’, don’t you think?
Annoyingly, one discovered this a hour or two after todays flight to Minsk had departed (it had to be the day that the flight departure time was 09:25am instead of 6:40pm) hence we have another night in Vilnius before catching a 35 minute flight tomorrow evening simply to cross the Belarusian ‘checkpoint’! One positive of this situation is that tomorrows flight cost less than £190 for all 4 of us!
As a result, one only has 1 day to explore Minsk so a strategic plan has been devised to make the most of it!
(Definite lesson learnt here that if a country says it is ‘visa free’, it may not mean that you can travel over any old section of the border!)