Moscow - here we come!

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And this is where it all begins. Our Trans-Siberian crossing. We left from The Hague for Schiphol very early, and there we met the other two travel companions. We boarded Scandinavian airlines with stop over in Copenhagen, and before we realised, we were cruising over Moscow. Huge. Lots of green. The first impressions are based on what we saw out of the airplain window. Too much forests actually! Where are the houses and a city with a nine million population?

We realised that the airport we were landing on (and of which we still don’t know the name) is quite outside from the city. But before getting there we had to pass the passport and visa control. We just entered Russia, and we already were in for the first Russian experience: the queue! In about an hour we managed to get through and reached the baggage area.

Finally we were out of the airport. In our hands only a small piece of green paper with scribbled instructions on how to reach the Moscow given us by tourist office we stumbled across on our way out. In search of the bus nr 48. Only when we got there did we realise that ‘bus’ is a big word. It was actually a mini-van, very much privately run, in which we struggled to squeeze in together with our backpacks, few foreigners and some Russians. Twenty-five rubles each, and off we go. Direction: capital city. What a ride! I was seated in the very back with my huge backpack in my lap and all I could do was to peek out over the bag through the rear window. Huge highways with lots of holes and no driving rules are quite an interesting combination…

First stop. Soon we figured it was also the last one. We got off as everybody else. Across the square we noticed a big M on a pole. Must be the metro. The instructions on our green paper were quite immediate, even though we did struggle at first with the Cyrillic alphabet. Green line, blue line and we reached the stop where our hotel should be. When we got out from the underground we were still clear we’re not in the center, or anywhere nearby. It took us also few moments before we realised that the huge skyscrapers surrounding us are there to host us. This used to be Olympic village, in the not so distant past. Now it is definitely ‘host the tourist’ area. We found our section, Delta, and we registered in. The rooms are on the last floor! Twenty-eighth! Great! Perfect view!

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Photos

The View
...from the 28th floor!