Night location: Moscow, Russia

Our day has gotten progressively better as it went on due to it starting with a pretty stressful transit from Heraklion to Moscow. Our flight was scheduled for 6:50am so we planned to leave our hotel at 5am as the airport is only about 10 minutes from the city centre. As Amber and David were leaving to check out at 4:50am, Amber knocked on Gem and Gareth's room to discover that they had just woken up 30 seconds before she knocked, and that they hadn't packed! Amber momentarily stood stunned in the corridor until Gemma instructed her to "Come in and help pack!"

What followed looked a bit like this: Gemma frantically put baby clothes, plastic containers, baby wipes, bibs, smocks and baby food in a range of four different bags; Amber tried and failed to disassemble Edith's travel cot; Gareth disassembled the baby cot and Amber deflated and rolled the mattress; Edith sat dazed propped on pillows and then happily rolled onto her stomach; Amber forcibly closed Gemma's suitcase; Gareth sat on his suitcase, but was unable to zip it up so was forced to take his toiletries bag separately to the airport; Gemma and Gareth got dressed while Edith remained in her jumpsuit.

We arrived at the airport at 5:35am and proceeded to the bag drop area. Amber and David's check-in woman was extremely difficult as she couldn't seem to comprehend that the expiry date on our Russian visa was 5 days earlier than our flight home from Amsterdam. David had all of our travel documentation on hand and could produce our train tickets from Saint-Petersburg to Helsinki, but even this didn't make sense to her. She spoke excellent English, so we don't think it was a language barrier issue, but in the end she called her colleague over who said something dismissive in Greek and then she proceeded to process the bags.

Gemma and Gareth were not interrogated at this point but they were confronted at the security screening. To add insult to to their early morning injury, in their haste, they had forgotten to remove the large bottle of sunscreen from their blue baby bag. The security man was awful. He aggressively ripped open the multitude of compartments with such force that he broke one of the zips. All of their contents were tipped out onto the filthy countertop multiple times until the offending sunscreen was finally found and disposed of. Throughout this entire process and then the flight that followed, Edith was brilliant. She didn't cry at all in the airport and then slept for the majority of the flight. A born traveller!

The border control in Moscow was relatively easy! The visa process is clearly so arduous that by the time you arrive in Russia, they know the appropriate checks have been done and therefore after authenticating the visa with a magnifying glass and UV light, they stamp it and you're in!

Compared to the Mediterranean, stepping out into the Russian drizzle accompanied by a mildly Siberian wind was a bit of a shock! That being said, both David and Gareth paraded around the open air carpark in just t-shirts which warranted a few awestruck glances. We crammed into an ironically small maxi taxi (neither Amber or David who were perched in the back-backseat could access their seat belts due to the baggage), and without hesitation, our driver took on the competition that is driving in Moscow.

The roads here are fantastic, with heaps of lanes and clear line markings, but the drivers, particularly the taxis, weave in and out of the lanes and the shoulder and barge their way through the traffic. Our driver recalculated our route on his impressive GPS device at least 15 times in response to live traffic data. This often meant that we were in the wrong lane but he transported us to our hotel in record time and without causing a major traffic incident.

Relieved to have arrived safely, we immediately sought out lunch and then after a short walk down the pedestrianised Arbat Street, we returned to our hotel and accessed our beautiful rooms. While Edith, Gemma and Gareth rested, Amber and David explored Moscow. The first point of business was buying Troika cards at a Metro station and then, feeling inspired, they proceeded to navigate through the underground to Red Square. There has clearly been a lot of work done to make Moscow easier for tourists to find their way with excellent maps placed in convenient locations and reasonably clear signposting. The metro stations are sights in themselves as the entry points resemble palatial ballrooms, and then huge escalators take you to the depths of the earth only to find platforms with elaborate light fittings and ornately decorated walls.

Red Square is purposefully built to fill you with awe at the Soviet power. It has clearly been designed with parades in mind with tiered platforms for dignitaries running down one side using the Kremlin wall as a backdrop, only interrupted by Lenin's Mausoleum. We walked the length of the square and then returned via the premium shopping centre 'GUM' which is opulent in every way and runs along the opposite side to the Kremlin wall. Our trip back to the hotel was longer than anticipated due to a few mistakes, but Moscow seems to have so many stately buildings and elaborate churches that we didn't mind.

After dinner on Arbat Street we all caught the metro back to Red Square to see it at night. We are really looking forward to seeing more of Moscow tomorrow!