09.00: Start your day with a traditional Russian breakfast at Café Pushkin (26a Tverskoi Bulvar; www.cafe-pushkin.ru/en/), housed in a sumptuous pre-revolution style building. This 24-hour restaurant has become an institution since it first opened in the 1990s. Order blini (pancakes) and sirniki (cottage-cheese fritters), and make sure to spread them both liberally with smetana (sour cream) and varenia (jam).
10.00: Walk down Tverskaya, Moscow’s main shopping street, towards the Kremlin then head down into the Metro at Okhotny Ryad. Buy yourself a ticket for 10 journeys (international sign language works perfectly well). The Moscow metro is the city’s greenest form of transport, carrying 9 million passengers each day – more than New York and London combined. The stations themselves have been described as ‘underground palaces’, and rightly so. Each is individual and many are adorned with mosaics, frescoes, chandeliers, stained glass, bas-reliefs, statues and marble. From Okhotny Ryad travel two stops south on the red line to Kropotkinskaya, one of the Metro’s most beautiful stations.
10.30: Visit the Red October Factory, one of Moscow’s most iconic buildings by crossing the Moscow River via the footbridge to the right of the monumental Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. This 19th-century red brick complex used to be home to Russia’s favourite chocolate brand, Red October, until the Moscow Government decreed all factories should be relocated outside the centre. While the smells of chocolate no longer drift down the river, this is the first industrial site to be redeveloped into lofts and offices, with the help of the likes of Sir Norman Foster, rather than be torn down.
11.30: Head another three stops south from Kropotkinskaya to Sportivnaya to visit the Moscow Metro Museum, housed inside the station at the Khamovnichesky Val exit. All texts are in Russian, but the displays give a fantastic insight into how the Metro was built.
12.30: Take the Metro to Kievskaya to buy a picnic at Dorogomilovsky Market (Mozhaysky Val 10), home to the best fresh produce from Russia and the former Soviet Republics; a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.
13.30: Make your way to Kolomenskaya to visit Kolomenskoe Museum-Reserve, a Unesco World Heritage Site, in the south of the city, home to four square kilometres of pristine parkland overlooking the Moscow River that once was a royal summer retreat. Find a spot for your picnic and after stroll around the various churches and buildings including one of Moscow’s most beautiful, the 16th-century Ascension Church.
16.00: Take a tour of some of the most superb metro stations by travelling around the Circle Line. Be warned, photography is illegal down here.
19.30: Have dinner at the vegetarian restaurant Avocado (Chistoprudny Boulevard, 12/2, Metro Chistye Prudy), where they offer international and fusion dishes as well as a large selection of ‘healing juices’. Some vegan dishes are also available.
21.30: For afters, head one stop to Vietnamese restaurant, Shanti (Myasnitsky Proezd, 2/1, metro Krasniye Vorota), and sample one of their many teas in the Tibetan Gallery at the back. Shanti is popular with Moscow’s ‘beautiful traveller crowd’, so if you feel energised by the tea then head to the basement and dance to the sounds of the international underground.
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