Maxima Panorama Hotel – Moscow, Russia

It is time again to write about one of the unique places Lindsay and I have stayed while traveling the world. Everyone knows that Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world and it is extremely hard to find good accommodations (they are either really expensive or really cheap and nasty). Thanks to hours of research I stumbled on an affordable gem called Maxima Panorama Hotel. This no thrills hotel was close to the city and located directly on a metro line (essential to exploring Moscow). My favorite part was that the location was close to all the major sights but was far enough out of the center city to really give you a “soviet feel.” This means that it was surrounded by block after block of tall square and predictable soviet architecture. In addition, the local street life was full of locals instead of just hundreds of tourists which you would find in the central city. Our room was high enough that the view over the city was spectacular. You couldn’t see any of “old Russia” but the communist housing blocks and industrial smoke stacks went on as far as the eye could see. It sounds like an ugly landscape but we were loving it as it had such a soviet feel. The hotel was new and remodeled but the exterior and breakfast area still looked and felt very much like communist Russia. Every morning we would just wake up, walk 50 feet outside the hotel and be at a metro stop (which then gave us access to all of Moscow). This hotel is also memorable because Lindsay and I had one of the scariest travel experiences ever there. We had a little miscommunication and thought we were both meeting in the downstairs lobby after I had to run back to the room. When I got back to the lobby Lindsay wasn’t there and after about 10 minutes of waiting I started to panic. Moscow isn’t known for abductions but it certainly isn’t unheard of. Lindsay was also pregnant at the time which caused the panic level to go up 10X. After about 15 minutes of missing each other on the elevator (she was going up, I was going down, etc) we finally ran into each other and my heart almost jumped out of my chest when I saw her. :) If you ever find yourself heading to Moscow and you don’t want to spend a fortune on a hotel try the unique, and centrally located, Maxima Panorama Hotel.