Moscow
We got up around 5:50am to get ready for our first flight to Helsinki. The hotel had a free breakfast which turned out to be quite good. They even had made to order omelettes. We caught the 7:15am shuttle to Terminal D at Sheremetyevo Airport. It only took 10 minutes to get there. The check in kiosks didn’t recognize my Finnair booking number so we had to wait...
On Saturday, we spent the morning running around doing a couple last minute things as this was our last full day in Russia. We’ve tried to see Lenin’s Mausoleum a few times on this trip but the line was always ridiculous. They only open his tomb and viewing of the body from 10am to 1pm daily so the window of opportunity is very limited. Today was our last...
Similar to Saint Petersburg, Moscow also spent a lot of time time decorating their subway stations. There were so many to see with varying themes. Here are a few that we sought out:
Across the street from Fallen Statue park was Gorky Park. Once a dilapidated park where you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near, night or day, is now the crown jewel of Moscow. There are green areas, ponds to use peddle boats, restaurants, ice cream places every 100m, and water fountains.
[kad_youtube url=”; width=640 height=320 ]
During Soviet times, there were statues promoting communism all over the city. After the fall of Stalin, a “de-stalinization” process took place and all the statues were removed and so the Fallen Statue park was created. These are a few of my favorites:
It’s Friday morning and we’re at the Cosmonaught museum. Almost everything inside is a full scale replica of everything from the Russian space program. Not as good as good as the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, but still pretty interesting.
Our night was supposed to be over after the sauna, but we both were nice and warm and relaxed that we decided to walk to Red Square en route to the apartment. On the way, we passed the famous Bolshoi Theatre, seen below: This was the first night we were able to get into Red Square since it had been closed for that event I mentioned a few posts ago. It’s really...
After another successful day of sightseeing, it was time to relax again at a Russian bath. We tried out the not-so-cheap Sunduny banya. Undoubtedly, the most iconic banya complex in Russia is Sanduny. Located in the heart of Moscow on Neglinnaya ul. and open since 1808, Sanduny is also the oldest surviving bath house in the Russian capital. It is worth a visit even...
We read the best place to get souvenirs is Izmailovsky Market, which was about 30 minutes from our apartment. The market is on the site where an old amusement park existed. It looked pretty run down and creepy but there were definitely good deals compared to the city centre. The lady below was a lot of fun to haggle with.
On Thursday morning, we headed back to St. Basil’s Cathedral to tour the inside. Something we learned on our walking tour the day before was the cathedral is actually a collection of 10 churches, one for each dome. And the inside is was super small and choppy but like all the other churches, all the walls were really colourful. As we were about to leave, the...