Nearest metro: Arbatskaya
The Melody Hotel is one of the best situated standard hotels in Moscow, in a charming historic district within comfortable walking distance of the Kremlin and Red Square, and just a few steps from the Boulevard Ring and the famous Arbat pedestrian precinct.The nearest metro stations from the hotel are just under ten minutes' walk away. Both called Arbatskaya, they are confusingly not actually connected. One is on the pale-blue line and the other on the dark-blue line.
The Melody Hotel is roughly 27km from Sheremetyevo International Airport, and the drive to/from the hotel will take between 40 and 90 minutes. Vnukovo Airport is around 30km away, with a similar journey time, while Domodedovo is about 45km from the hotel, and guests should allow at least 80 minutes for the journey. Moscow's mainline train stations are all within 30 minutes' drive of the Melody Hotel.
Local Sightseeing
The Melody Hotel is an excellent base for exploring Moscow's historic center and top attractions, with the Kremlin, Red Square, the Pushkin Museusm and the Bolshoi Theatre all within comfortable walking distance.In the immediate vicinity of the hotel, the main attraction is Arbat, one of Moscow's most famous streets. While the New Arbat, slightly closer to the hotel, is one of the worst excrescences of Soviet urban planning, Old Arbat was one of Mosocow's most prestigious residential districts in the 18th and 19th centuries, and in the 20th century became the center of bohemian life in the city. Pedestrianised in the late eighties, the street is now a major tourist attraction, with a huge number of street performers and souvenir stalls, as well as open-air cafes and bars. Famous buildings on Arbat include the pretty neoclassical building housing the Pushking Apartment Museum at No. 53, where Russia's greatest poet lodged after his wedding, and the magnificent Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the Stalinist skyscrapers known as the Seven Sisters, at the western end of the street.
Within five minutes' walk of the hotel, sights of interest include the Church of the Great Ascension at Nikitskie Vorota on the Boulevard Ring and the Ryabushinsky Mansion behind it on Malaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa. The former is a plain but impressive neoclassical church (built 1786-1816) that was popular with Moscow's intelligentsia and was the sight of Alexander Pushkin's wedding to Natalia Gonchareva. The latter is one of the finest examples of Style Moderne architecture in the city, built by architect Fyodor Shekhtel for industrialist Stepan Ryabushinsky. It was later given by the Soviet authorities to Maxim Gorky, and now houses a rather pedestrian museum to the radical writer which nonetheless gives visitors the chance to admire some of the mansion's spectacular interiors.
