Day 1:
We started our sightseeing in Moscow with its most famous sight, the Red Square. Although there is a metro stop close by we took a cab from our hotel straight to the square.
The square is surrounded by St. Basil’s Cathedral, Kremlin Walls, and Lenin Mausoleum on one end and the State Historical Museum and GUM Department store on the other.
We did not go inside St. Basil’s cathedral as I read that the exterior architecture is more impressive anyways. Lenin Mausoleum was closed that day.
After spending some time at the Red Square we walked behind St. Basil’s Cathedral towards Zaryadye park. There is a Floating Bridge there that has great views over Moskva river.
We went back to the hotel after sightseeing for about 4 hours. In early afternoon we took the cab back to the Red Square. I had read great reviews of a self-serve restaurant called Stolovaya No 57 that serves authentic Russian food.
After dinner we took a cab to Old Arbat Street. We did most of our souvenir shopping in Moscow here.
Day 2:
No trip to Moscow is complete without a trip inside the Kremlin. There are a variety of tickets available and it can easily take a whole day to explore Kremlin fully but we had decided to only visit the Cathedral Square. Tickets were 700 RUB /person.
On the grounds of Kremlin you can find the largest bell in the word, the Tsar Bell.
After spending about 3 hours inside Kremlin we had lunch outside and went back to the hotel for some rest. After a couple of hours rest we decided to visit the VDNKH Park (Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva). This park hosts a general purpose permanent trade show that showcases various Russian territories (or former Soviet Union states).
The park is huge and it can easily take about an hour to walk from end to end (without stopping). Give yourself plenty of time to rest in between and enjoy the sights.
We were pretty tired (and hungry) after walking almost end to end of VDNKH park and took a cab to a fairly highly rated Georgian restaurant Khachapuri.
It took a while for one of the servers to take our order but everything that was served was really delicious. I am a big fan of Georgian bread (khachapuri) now.
Day 3:
This was our last day in Moscow and we had only 2 things on the docket, Metro tour and Gorky Park. We started the day with a self-guided Metro tour. Moscow has the busiest metro system in Europe and also has some very beautiful stations with interesting architecture.
After the Metro tour, we arrived at Gorky Park (Park Kul’tury Metro stop on Line 1, Line 5).
Gorky Park is also the place from where you can get on the Radisson Flotilla river cruise on Moskva river. After spending a couple of hours in the park, we took a cab to another highly rated Georgian restaurant called Megobari.
We ordered 2 khachapuri (one with meat and one with spinach) and some lamb and chicken kebabs. Everything except the spinach khachapuri was delicious.
After our early dinner we checked out of our hotel and took the cab towards Domodedovo Airport where we were going to spend the night at a hotel for our very early flight to Madrid the next day.