Day 26 - Tour day 15 – Sunday 28 July 2019 - From Moscow to Canberra

Sunrise:         4:26am

(I added the actual flight times after I wrote my notes.)

I don’t know what time I woke up this morning the first time but it was 6:30 when I finally surfaced for the day.

Had a shower & washed my hair, then ran the bath and had a relaxing soak for half an hour or so.

I went down to breakfast just before 8 and this time I found where the red caviar was hiding and put a largish dollop on my plate. That and salmon was all I needed this morning, plus OJ & coffee.
Before I returned to my room, I went for a wander around the Conference area of the hotel,

which is on the same floor as the breakfast rooms. When I came to the womens toilet I went inside, as I had heard that it was rather opulent.

I didn't go into a cubicle. 
I then returned to my room and finalised the packing and after reading for a while, decided to check out around 11am, so I could read and people watch down in the foyer. 

This is the lift area on the floor my room was on.  You needed a room key to get through the glass doors to the rooms, from the lifts. The sign was so people knew which floors certain lifts went to.

BA 0232        Depart          DME    4:05pm          Arrive             LHR    6:00pm

There were 4 of us on the midday transfer to Domodedovo Airport (DME), which happens to be the furtherest out of Moscow of their 3 airports.  https://rusmania.com/moscows-airports  tells you all about the airports and how to get to them

Olga, who was arranging the transfers, arrived around 10 to midday and we only had to wait a short while for the van to arrive.

The drive out to the airport took an hour and the driver had no English and was very non communitive. We got dropped off in a car park and made our own way over to the terminal.

My flight was open for check-in, as was Mia’s, who is flying home to Hong Kong.  You check in on the ground floor but then go upstairs to the next level for all international departures. 

Some pics from the 2nd level.
Mia was flying with a different airline. Can’t remember which one. The other couple from Singapore are flying with Emirates and their flight isn’t until 6pm.

We all came together again at the security check point, and then Mia and I again at customs. After that, I didn’t see any of them again. I was very relieved to finally be airside, as the woman at customs was very ’unfriendly’ in her attitude. 




The BA Lounge wasn’t especially easy to find. I went into the Austrian Airlines lounge to ask them where it was, as did the 2 ladies who entered before me.  

For those of you who might be using the BA lounge from DME some time.  It was hiding around a corner to the left, near the first of the duty free shops started. If I had thought of it, I would have taken photos of the outside area.

By now it was around 1:45pm, so I had a light lunch of fresh salmon, pickled gherkins, olives and a glass of Chardonnay.

2:15 and I decided that I had better find a currency exchange place and get rid of my remaining zloty and rubles. Oh, the zipper on my handbag broke earlier this morning, so thought I might go bag shopping too. Oops. No currency exchange after passport control and only booze, cosmetics and sunglasses in duty free and not many shops. Certainly nothing like Melbourne or Sydney or London have.

Back to the lounge to read my book.

The flight was eventually called and I joined the group 2 queue and when I got to the boarding gate, they said that I had  been upgraded to first class. Seat 4K. Woohoo....

So unexpected and so nice to turn left on entry to the plane.

Push back was at 4:20, started taxing at 4:25pm and airborne at 4:35pm, so only 30 minutes late from schedule.

I had a glass of champagne

and for dinner the Canape

and then a Caesar Salad

which was actually a small lobster with some crunchy lettuce (can’t remember the type) no main or dessert and a glass of water and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

My eyes are so sore, it’s not funny. Can’t remember if I mentioned yesterday that I woke up with a sore throat and am definitely at the start of a head cold. Had one of these back in March, so it will be a week before it’s over but crappy in the mean time.  I’m planning on sleep for the London to Singapore leg.

Touched down in London at 5 minutes to 6pm, so we made up the late departure time out of DME.               

BA0015         Depart           LHR    9:35pm          Arrive             SIN      5:45pm Monday 29 July

The plane for Sydney via Singapore departed from gate C64, so we had to take the train over to that gate. Then we waited and waited and waited. Finally we boarded and had lift off at 9:50pm.

I felt so lousy and must have looked it, as one of the hostesses asked if I was okay. Anyway, as soon as we were airborne and before they came around to take the dinner requests, I laid the seat flat and went to sleep for the night.

I surfaced properly at 7:30am London time. So had pretty much 9 hours sleep. Not solid sleep but I don’t remember being awake for any great length of time. I certainly felt a whole lot better than I did last night and enjoyed my breakfast. 

As I write this it will be another 3 hours before we land in Singapore.

BA0015         Depart           SIN      7:25pm          Arrive             SYD    5:10am

We have now departed and I’m pretty sure that the actual departure was on time. Push back at 7:25pm and we were airborne at 7:44pm, so we weren’t late at all. I’m not sure why the announcements were apologising for being late and making us wait.

I ate dinner this leg, then tried to sleep. A very broken sleep, as I coughed a lot last night. I was woken by the hostess with my breakfast around 4am. We are due to touch down in Sydney at 5:10am.  

We touched down at 5:02 and it’s either raining or has been raining in Sydney. I haven’t seen any rain for quite a while.

I haven’t flown through Sydney International for a few years now. Living in Canberra,  I prefer Melbourne. Mainly for the convenience of getting from the domestic terminal to the international and vice versa and the luggage from flights usually starts appearing within a reasonable time after the flight has landed, and after it took almost 45 minutes for the luggage to start coming through to the carousel for our flight, and we were the first plane to land for the day, I can’t say that I’m especially impressed with the baggage handling for our flight.  2 planes that landed after ours, had their baggage on the carousel ages before our flight’s luggage started coming through.  It will be back to Melbourne again for me next time. Mind you, Qatar fly direct from Canberra and Singapore do, or at least they did. Not sure if they still fly out of Canberra.

Sitting in the Qantas Club, waiting for the final flight home.

QF1513          Depart           SYD    8:10am          Arrive             CBR    9:05am

Bill was there to meet me. We walked down to the arrivals hall and the luggage started arriving on the carousel shortly after we got there.  My suitcase was 3^rdon the carousel, so we were out of there very soon after.

It’s great to be back home, but so very nice to have the memories from the tour(s) that I have recently experienced.

Canberra Sunset   5:19 pm

Steps Walked from the 28^th till getting home. 17,933           

Day 25 - Tour Day 14 – Relaxed Start - Saturday 27 July 2019 – Moscow and the Kremlin.

Sunrise:         4:24am                                              Sunset:          8:46pm

Forecast:       18 to 28 mostly sunny.

It’s currently 11:15 pm as I start to write this, and I didn’t make any notes during the day today, as it was a very full on day and I really think that Insight either need to re-arrange when the optional & included visit's happen or add another day to the Moscow itinerary.

I woke up with a slightly sore throat this morning and am definitely getting a cold.
I went down to breakfast about 10 minutes before 8am and there were plenty of seats available.  Come 8am, and I think the rest of the people in the hotel had decided that 8am was the time to have breakfast.  I had a full breakfats this morning, as I knew that the day would be longish for those of us doing both the included and optional programme.  

First up re our 10am departure, was the optional Mosaic Tour.  Seems like quite a number of people didn’t read the description of what it entailed. I did read the description but have to admit that it wasn’t quite what I was expecting..  So many things in Russia are on a massive scale. I know we went to Victory Park Complex. All I know is that a number of people where surprised about where we went and what we saw.  It was all about the Russian WW11 experience and a commemoration to their fallen.

I've just had a re-read about the optional and it seems that we were supposed to Finally at the Novodevichy cemetery, see memorials to such greats as Khrushchev, Chekhov, Mayakovsky, Prokofiev and Eisenstein.  Well, we didn’t do that and that was perhaps a good thing.

From Victory Park, we were taken to a pedestian mall (road) for our lunch break.  A few of us ended up in the same restaurant. I had a Caesar Salad with chicken, that cost 450 rubles or $12.00 at todays rate.  After lunch I called into a supermarket to buy a bottle of coca cola. 59 rubles or $1.56. 

After our lunch break, we then all went to the Kremlin. The included tour speel says this:

In the afternoon, walk within the walls of the Kremlin Fortress to visit one of the cathedrals. Learn more about Russia’s famous Tsars, the history of the Fortress and how its role has changed over the years.

Photos inside the Cathedral were not allowed.

The optional says this:  Walk within the walls of the Kremlin to visit the treasure chest of the Imperial Russian family in the Armory. With your guide, you'll witness the staggering collection of Tsarist artefacts, be it bedazzling crown jewels, jewel-studded thrones or the world-famous Fabergé Eggs!.  That cost was €56 or $94.00. was it worth it? For me, no. Others thought it was but thought the local guide talked for far too long.  AND you couldn’t take any photo’s in the museum.

From the Kremlin, we went back to the hotel and arrived there around 5.30pm.  Our farewell dinner was at 7pm.

Nicole & I had arranged to have a final pre-dinner drink at 6:30.  She is taking the 5am transfer in the morning and heading to Turkey to do another tour.

A group of people at the dinner, mainly Australians and Canadians, lingered after dinner finished. I left them around 10pm to come to my room and sort out the luggage.

I’ll probably post a final  update, re my trip back home to Australia but that might not happen until I am back home.

I’m off to bed and will enjoy my sleep in tomorrow morning.

Steps Walked                     15,178

Hotel: Radisson Collection Hotel Moscow.

Day 24 - Tour Day 13 – Fri 26 July 2019 – Moscow

Sunrise:         4:23am                                              Sunset:          8:47pm

Forecast:       17 to 27 partly cloudy

I was down to breakfast shortly after 6:30 this morning. 

Shortly after sunrise this morning

Beautiful spread and apart from hard boiled eggs, all the egg dishes, fried, scrambled and omelette, are prepared fresh. 

We departed at 8:30 for Sergiev Posad. Some major road works made the going very slow for about 20 minutes. We arrived at the Monastery around 10ish. 

The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to over 300 monks

Built in 1423, the squat, gold-domed Trinity Cathedralis the heart of the monastery, as well as its oldest surviving building.

We met the local guide Katerina, and we went into 4 or 5 of the churches there. Once the tour was over, we had free time until 12:15, then we were on our way back to the hotel again. We arrived back there shortly before 2pm.

We all headed out again at 4pm, to do the included City Tour, which had us riding the metro to a couple of different stations,

so we could see the different art works in them and Red Square, plus free time in Red Square or the Gum department store, until 7:15pm.

Most of us had something to eat before returning back to the hotel for an hour and then we met up again at 8:40 for our “Moscow By Night” tour.

We drove out to a view point, that overlooked the Olympic Stadium and was directly in front of the University of Moscow,

another of the ‘Seven Sisters’.

From there we drove to the river, just down from the Kremlin, where we had an Insight flourish of a couple of shots of vodka and some orange juice and the opportunity to take some photos.

After that, we then re-visited Red Square and half an hour to take some night time photographs.

By then it was  9:30, so once again we returned to the hotel but this time for the night.

Another full and final day tomorrow but that doesn’t start until 10am.

Apart from a rain shower while we were in Red Square earlier in the evening, the weather was once again nice and warm.

Steps Walked                     7,155

Hotel: Radisson Collection Hotel Moscow.