Intrigued by the castles of Nesvizh and Mir, I arranged a private driver to take us to both sites on a one-day tour from Minsk. Although we were perfectly comfortable renting a car and tooling around Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on our own, we had some reservations about doing the same in Belarus. My main concerns had to do with language issues on signs and during any potential encounters with traffic police. Parking at popular sites was also a concern as was finding a gas station and decyphering the pumps. It seemed easiest and most relaxing to just let someone else do the driving. This turned out to be more than true when the day of our tour arrived and it was pouring raining. Much of the sights we wanted to see were indoors, so we weren’t so bothered by that, but it was a real pleasure to relax into the back seat and let our driver, Alexei, deal with the rain and Minsk traffic as we headed out of town.
