After the family event we (yes, again 2) took the famous night train from Berlin direction to...Moscow (it runs as EuroNight 441 and calls itself STRIZH). We had the recommendation that it would be worthwhile to visit Brest and since we were anyway passing nearby we booked ( https://bezviz.by/en/ ) a Belarussian visa-waiver for Brest. Nice to have at least one steward/hostess per wagon who welcomes you at the door, but less practical was the fact that even basic communication in English and/or German proved difficult on this international train. The restaurant had a very restricted offer (no meat, no alc), the menu offered the following explanation: Due to customs restrictions of the European Union, the choice of food in Poland and Germany may be restricted. Regular passengers in the dining car assured us that there are plenty of food and all sorts of alcoholic drinks on offer - including from EU origin - on the Brest - Moscow stretch of the journey.
The city of Brest is interesting, a very mixed bag in terms of architecture and urbanism, but not a major highlight on our route. We visited the former Fort - now basically a huge park with some really uggly socialist monuments, 3 churches and a few museums - and the history museum. There was some information available in English but really quite limited. Especially information about the Jewish past and the holocaust is very scarce. Most of the time, we strolled around in the city centre. Some traces of its Polish-Jewish pre-war history can still be spotted here and there. The remnants of the great synagogue converted into a cinema (again, we had seen such a conversion in Cernivtsi already).
What really surprised us was how many people commute across the - rather closed - border. There is a regular train connection between Brest and Terespol in Poland just a few kilometeres across the border full of people who are apparently not travellling for leisure (as we were). From Terespol we took a bus (due to railway works) and then a train back to Biala Podlaska where our tandem was already waiting for us.
Brest
Brest: The Fort