The Tune's: Mockba

With 2 US Passports in hand and 2 hard earned Russian visas en tacked, Scott and I headed off on Thursday to Mockba, otherwise known as Moscow. The journey was 3 hours and 15 minutes from Heathrow and no issues on BA which was great.

Upon landing you had to fill in a 'landing card' and a 'customs declaration card', how hard can that be right? Wrong. We had been warned to fill out a Customs card to declare items that we were bringing in so we wouldn't be taxed for them on the way out so we figured better safe than sorry and filled out the small two-sided piece of paper. Little did the BA staff know that you actually need to fill in two of them since you have to carry one around until you leave. So upon meeting the customs lady at the airport who couldn't speak English we were turned away. After some English speaking help we were on our way.

We took a 45min. train from the airport to the Paveletskya metro station. From there we waited in line for our metro passes and off we went to find our hotel. Upon leaving our nearest metro station, Teatralnaya, we were greated by thousands of Russians celebrating Russian Independence Day.

Inside of Paveletskya station.

The military were on guard for the Russian Independence Day celebrations.

After checking in to the hotel, we made a reservation at supposedly one of the Top 100 Restaurants in the world, called Pushkin Cafe. There are two levels to the restaurant and the ground level is the regular cafe/restaurant area and the upstairs is the "Fine Dining". So our concierge informed us that that upstairs attire was jackets for men so that was out immediately but we opted for the downstairs. The building was gorgeous (below)

To the left is the main bar when you walk into the restaurant. Above is the ceiling which was gorgeous with all of the detail in it. There were frescoes all over the restaurant ceilings and I didn't know you couldn't take pictures in the restaurant until someone else was getting yelled at, after I already took mine. Oops :-)

Below are our traditional Russian dinners: I had the meal on the left which was Russian Dumplings made of beef, pork and lamb with sour cream on them. Scott had the Pig Trotter on a bed of mashed potatoes. Both dinners were amazing and dinner was very reasonable. I would highly recommend it to everyone!!!

Friday we woke up and decided to tour The Kremlin and St. Basil's for the day. Good thing we got there early since the line for tickets was long.

Pictures (from top left): The Kremlin, The tomb of the unknown soldier, Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Church of Dormination, Ivan the Great Bell Tower, Cathedral Square Entrance, Onion Domes, Tsar Bell.

One of the funny things we saw in The Kremlin was this Thermometer (it goes from -40 degrees Celsius to + 50 degrees Celsius).

After touring inside the Cathedrals and walking around the Kremlin we walked over to Red Square. Pictures (starting top left): Kzan Cathedral, St. Basil's Cathedral (next 4 photos), Lenin's Mausoleum, Historical Museum (next 2 photos)