Magical Moscow

Our trip around the world started on a cold morning with a road trip to Memmingen, near Munich in Germany, from where we took the flight to a much colder destination, Moscow. But Moscow felt cold only because of the weather. Instead, we felt the warm welcome from friendly people and the incredible atmosphere that was surrounding the city. We did not see smiles everywhere, but we got enough positive reactions from people, we found good food and good coffee to brighten our days and beautiful places to visit, altogether making our three days stay in the Russian capital feel pleasant.

But the thing that we enjoyed most was meeting our friend and former colleague from the ship, Victor. And we felt lucky to find him there since he proved to be not just a good friend, but also a wonderful guide, a warm host and skilled cook (because after coffee, some good food is essential for a good day :)

Discovering Moscow

We stayed the first two nights at a hostel close to the city center and less than half an hour walk to the main touristic attractions. Communicating was the first difficult thing to do because of the different alphabet and the fact that not many people spoke English. But being a traveler in 2018 is always made easy by Google Translate and for the time we had Victor at our side we didn’t need to worry about anything.

We made it easy for others to understand that we are tourists with our appearance. Dressed up in multiple layers of clothes, we realized that the contrast between us and the others was very noticeable. One thing that is worth speaking about when describing Moscow is the approach of the locals to fashion. You can see many Russian women dressed beautifully in colorful motifs. Probably “color” is the best word to describe the city. Impressive buildings and charming Christmas decorations (yes, Christmas lights were still around), covered in snow and accompanied by traditional songs, made the city center a place for people to feel good, to dance and to joyfully say goodbye to winter. But for us Russian winter didn’t feel like it is planning to go away soon, mostly when thinking that in just a few days later we would find ourselves lost in the wide Siberian landscape, crossing the country on board the Trans-Siberian train towards the heart of Russia.

What to see in Moscow

We found out that Moscow needs time to be discovered and enjoyed, more than the three days that we spent there. Being home to 12.2 million residents, it is among the world’s largest cities and it is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth. But we were still happy with everything we discovered. Moscow’s architecture is world-renowned. Most of the important places and monuments are located in the center area, in the Red Square: the colorful Saint Basil’s Cathedral, which is a masterpiece of Russian architecture, together with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Lenin’s tomb and the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin.

While exploring the city center part, we went into the most famous GUM in Russia, a large store in the Kitai-gorod part of Moscow, facing Red Square. We’ve visited also the Bolshoi Theatre, the State Historical Museum, the main building of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the Tretyakovsky Proyezd, the Seven Sisters and other small monuments and beautiful streets, ending with the Komsomolskaya Square, known as Three Station Square thanks to three ornate rail terminals: Leningradsky, Kazansky and Yaroslavsky, the last one being our departure point towards the other side of this big country.