Minsk was essentially a ghost town on New Year’s Day. We decided that we would find something to eat and then catch trains across the metro. It would have been good to plan a day trip on a country train but we enjoyed the Soviet decorated stations instead.

We had wanted to visit the Lido cafe which is like the old milk bars in Poland where you choose your food from the dishes displayed, line up to pay and then collect and eat your food. They are like canteens. Sadly, Lido and everything else was shut so we had no choice but to have Maccas.

On the way we walked past the permanent circus building with it’s quirky statues.

Down in the Metro, everything is soooo clean, including the underground walkways, stairs, platforms and trains. The glass on the trains is even devoid of finger marks!

The system is extremely efficient, with trains arriving every 5 minutes. Each trip, no matter how many stations you passed cost 50 Australian cents which you just pay using your visa the same as you would an Opal card in Australia.

We picked random stations to alight from and walked into the open to see some of suburbia. Most places were shut because of the holiday. We did get to see some older Soviet buildings in the outer suburbs though.

We returned home to recharge and then decided to try the taxi app that is used here instead of UBER, called Yandex.Taxi to check that we could use it to get a cab to the airport tomorrow as we are leaving very early.

The setting sun was spectacular behind the Gates of Minsk. It was the only day we saw the sun here.

The cab arrived and took us to Karl Marx place again to find some good food. The app lets you choose if you want to pay with card or cash and the ride and payment process was fuss-free. The Grunwald restaurant was full so we walked back to Cafe Michel and had an excellent variety of dishes. Scott ordered chicken with sherry fried sage, Michele had beef filet with mushroom ravioli and truffle sauce, Teresa had ravioli with celery cream and stewed lamb. Since it was our last family meal together for a while, we followed our meals with a deconstructed lemon meringue pie dessert and chocolate mousse with pickled prunes and sherry.

It was time to get ready for the leaving tomorrow. We were already suffering separation anxiety because Scott will be leaving us to return to Frankfurt and Michele and Teresa are flying to Vilnius early in the morning.

Goodbye Dotta and Дабранач!