Kolomenskoe or bust

The good thing about Moscow, is that you are never lost as long as you know where the nearest Metro (subway) station is.

Since today was my day off, I slept in way later than I planned and then headed out to Kolomenskoe, which is a massive park (it used to be the Imeperial estate) with a lot of old churches. I've never been there and it was the one place I really wanted to see this trip.

So I made it to Kolomenskaya metro stop. The directions said you walk up a hill for about ten minutes. I started going straight, then looked around and saw that to my right was a big hill. Score! So I walk, and walk, and walk...and about an hour later, I start thinking, maybe this is the wrong hill. So I stopped and asked this lady... I think I scared her. Another lady was very helpful. When I asked where Kolomenskoe was, she asked "Metro?". I said, "no, park". Then she nodded and said "jdkdncvnvioaowiaannglfgaojfodigah". Yeah, that's pretty much what I heard too. I caught "tramvay (trolley-bus" and "turn" (or what I thought was turn), and then she pointed, so I headed back to the last trolley bus stop and turned. I saw a couple that looked like they might be venturing to the park, so I decided to follow them. Turns out they weren't going to the park, but a household goods store. Although they led me on a wonderful tour of the hilltop mechanics garage mini-city. So now high on gasoline, oil, and paint fumes, somehow I logically decided to head back to the metro. Upon reaching the metro, lo and behold I see a sign for "Kolmenskoe". Yeah you guessed it. If I had just kept walking straight, I would have found it. So ten minutes later at the top of the hill, I found it...2.5 hours after I started looking for it. Oh well. It was worth it.

I think a large portion of the park is an old apple orchard because there a ton of apples on every tree and there were lots of people picking them...

After walking around for bit, promising myself to come back again, I headed to Red Square.

St. Basil's Cathedral

Lenin's Tomb

Red Square (Kremlin on the left, St. Basil's behind me)

Kremlin

Kremlin and part of a wall that is supposed to be the original, but I have heard that it isn't.