Perfect ending to a perfect trip - Happy Birthday Moscow!

Today being Moscow's birthday the "big street" that runs from our area down to the Kremlin was totally closed - all accesses were blocked with street-sweepers or big city trucks - the citizens, mostly young, took advantage all day and tonight the city was "hopping". The weather co-operated and we got to see the Tattoo without wind or rain, although from our perch high up in the center stand it got very cool towards the end - fortunately we had packed our thermal underwear before we left and it came in very handy, besides surreptiously pinching the blankets off our beds which kept us reasonably warm. The tattoo was everything we expected, ending up with the 1812 overture complete with real cannon and bells, followed by fireworks over St Basil`s cathedral. Really a fantastic encore to our trip. Tomorrow we head inside the Kremlin before we set out to overnight in the airport and the start of a 24 hour travel day back home.
That`s it for us. Hope you enjoyed the trip vicariously as much as we did in real-time.

Getting comfortable in Moscow

Looking north into Red Square - The Kremlin walls are on the left, St Basil's Church on the right and the stands for the Military Tattoo in the centre.

The palatial exterior of GUM the Harrods of Moscow - GUM stands for Glavny Universalny Magazin (or bloody big department store!) Unlike former pre-perestroika times it is now very upscale.

After yesterday's frantic arrival throes, we have begn to feel much more at ease in this city. There are essentially two rings around the city above ground - the inner "garden" and the outer "boulevard" ring (we are nicely headquartered in between these rings) and a third underground ring served by the Metro (line # 5) the Brown line. We have found it easisest to come and go from a station on the Green line from the "M" station, that goes via 4 stops to Paveletsky station where we will catch the AeroportExpress train to Domodevodo Airport - Actually, being super-uptight about these things since our flight home leaves at 05:00 am, we did a dry run this morning - very smooth. Domodevodo has been upgraded and looks like any other large airport (a nice change from St Petersburg!). Afterward we returned to town getting off at the Bolshoi Theatre stop whence we circumvented the Kremlin, about a 3K walk, ending up at Red Square where we watched some of the Tattoos performers rehearsing. You can see a trailer of the tattoo here www.kremlin-military-tattoo.ru/en/video Unfortunately it rained again - now that would put a damper on things tomorrow night! To get out of the rain we dodged into GUM - the Harrods of Moscow - It has come a very long way since the old days, as has all of Russia it seems - we are amazed by the large number of high-end cars from "The West", especially Range-Rover Vogues, HSEs and Sport models. Along with high-rollers come sexily clad "young things" whose uniform consists of fitted black leather jackets, plus your choice of drain-pipe jeans or micro-skirts finished off with seriously high heels (5"-6") including 2" platforms - it is quite interesting watching them negotiate the cobblestones and uneven pavements. Sortalike Victoria Beckham is their role model! Gottagonow - it's happy hour!

Arrival in Moscow

Arriving in Moscow on The Red Arrow Express.

We enjoyed the sleeper trip but it was over way too fast - on board by 11:15 pm, asleep by 00:15, and waking up at 07:15 am for a hasty (not very good) breakfast, then off the train into the sights of the Wonderful Moscow metro - just one problem - all the signs are in Old Russian cyrillic. But, like everywhere else the muscovites have uniformly been very warm, smiling and helpful. Next challenge was to find our accommodation - Unfortunately one end of our street was closed for construction, and to make things worse we couldn't see the street sign, also in cyrillic, so it probably wouldn't have helped if we could see it! But, again with the aid of passers, by we made it. We then set out to get tickets for Saturday's Military Tattoo, after which we headed into town for our first look at The Kremlin and surrounds - more on that later. Right now (8:00 pm) it's teeming down - glad we are inside! TTFN

Fifth and Last Day in St Petersburg

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