The first leg of the journey was from Manchester to Moscow by air via Brussels. We departed at 06:15 on an airbus A320 which has been specially painted with imagery from three of the Belgian painter Rene Magritte’s iconic artworks. According to the inflight magazine the creation of the aircraft’s livery took almost a year. Upon changing aeroplanes at Brussels we were surprised to see that we were reboarding the same aircraft for the journey to Moscow.
We arrived in Moscow at Domodedovo Airport in light snow and heavy cloud with compacted snow on the edges of the runway and the aprons. A taxi journey took us to central Moscow just in time for tea at The National Hotel opposite The Kremlin!
Wr are now 3 hours ahead of GMT.