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Ok well it was a few hours but still possibly the speediest visit to the Kremlin and Red Square ever!!
We arrived in Moscow on Friday 25th May courtesy of the Russian rail system which was very good indeed. We decided to upgrade our train tickets to Business class as it was only an extra $15 between us. This meant we had loads of legroom, food served with a beer and a TV for the 7 hour trip.
We arrived in Moscow at about 10.30pm so we went straight to bed, after we were stitched up with the taxi fare, ready for our whirlwind tour of Mosocw the following day.
We had already arranged our flights to Beijing so we only had about 4 hours to leg it to the Kremlin and back in time for our taxi to the airport.
Our first impressions just walking to the Kremlin were that Moscow was a lot nicer than St Petersburg. It was a lot cleaner and seemed a lot friendlier. Once we arrived at the Kremlin in the blistering heat (32degrees) we wandered around its walls marvelling at the grounds and the sheer size of it.
The tomb of the Unknown soldier.
Memorial to all unnamed fallen soldiers.After buying our tickets we began our assault on the interior and I have to say we felt a little like Japanese tourists, firing our cameras at everything as we flew round. The buildings inside were very impressive and the churchs were very beatiful. You pretty much had a route to follow due to the Kremlin police whistling at you if you strayed from the path or touched something that was off limits. After whizing around the grounds inside we headed to Red Square and this was equally impressive if a little crowded with other tourists and weddings!?!? St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square is a majestic building and it really was a shame we didn't have more time to spend here.
We both legged it back to the hotel wishing we had spent less time in St Petersburg and more time here. It has taught us that we should not right off a country based on one crappy city and if we ever get somewhere we don't like again we will move straight on.
The taxi ride to the airport was quite an experience, the traffic in Moscow was, if possible, worse than St Petersburg. The taxi
driver had to pull off 3 emergency stops on the way as he seemed to not notice when other people had stopped at red lights!! We also saw some very interesting road manoevures (photographic evidence below).
Our flight to Beijing was via Dubai and took 20hours in total. The first leg got us to Dubai at 11.30pm and the food supplied by Emirates was nicer than anything we had in Russia! We had 4 hours to wait at Dubai so spent it wandering the duty free gazing longingly at Booze and Gifts.
We eventually arrived in Beijing at 3.00pm local time after a bit of a turbulent landing, there were a few people looking a little yellow. After a bit of a battle to get a taxi we ended up sharing with a nice NZ couple in their fifties who were off to travel the silk road on an organised trip.
When we arrived in Beijing we got some food and headed for bed where Jason slept until 1.00pm the next day.
Our next installment will bring you up to date with our time in Beijing and where we go next.
Zaijian (goodbye in Chinese!)
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bristolbaron
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"We eventually arrived in Beijing at 3.00pm local time after a bit of a turbulent landing, there were a few people looking a little yellow." Not quite sure thats politically correct jase.. keep the crazy parking/driving pics coming.