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Irkutsk to Moscow was to be the longest leg of our train journey (and strictly speaking the only section which was actually along the trans-Siberian line). The 5185km to Moscow was to take 4 days and 3 nights, by far the longest time either of us have ever spent on a train.

Our first challenge was to get to the train station at the right time; a quirk of the Russian railways is that they all run on Moscow time. In a country that spans 7 time zones this can get confusing. For us, it meant that the time listed on our tickets was actually 5 hours earlier than the local departure time. Everything on the train and in all the stations along the way would show the time in Moscow and the restaurant car supposedly operated to Moscow time (9am-9pm which in Irkutsk meant it would open for breakfast at 2pm!). People adopt different strategies to cope with this; we opted to try and change our watches incrementally, roughly as we crossed the time zones along the way. Asking anyone on the train what time it is, you might get several very different answers.

As we set off, we were pleasantly surprised to find that despite the train being quite busy we had the 4 berth cabin to ourselves and we were excited to be on our way again. As with the last section of our journey (from UB - Irkutsk), there were lots of soldiers on the train who looked very young and were quite enthusiastic to talk to the foreigners spread around the train. One of the friends that we had made on the previous leg was sharing a cabin with a young soldier who proudly showed off his gun, and was happy to let our friend have a go with it (although he did take the precaution of removing the loaded magazine first).

We decided to try out the restaurant car on the first night aboard. The menu was quite extensive but once we actually tried to order, we were told that they didn't have a lot of the items offered (which we are told is quite typical in Russia). What they did have to offer boiled down to a couple of variations on meat and potatoes; this was perfectly tasty although the slightly miserly portions had us searching through our food bag soon after our return to our carriage.

We woke the next morning and were surrounded by the taiga - boggy soil and endless forests which apparently had made building the railway line initially very difficult. We had a tasty breakfast of porridge made from the samovar and provisions which we had barely had to augment in Irkutsk. We had bought what we thought was some milk to go in our tea and with the porridge but on opening, we discovered it was more like sour milk - apparently a very common drink in Russia. Happily, it actually went very well with our porridge.

In the first couple of days there were lots of stops but not many of any decent length of time where we could actually get off the train and stretch our legs or buy any of the treats on offer. We tried to use the few stops of more than 20-30mins to get to shops outside of the station where a wider variety of food - especially fresh fruit and veg - was available. The time seemed to disappear quickly though and we often felt rushed, nervous of getting back to the station to see our train pulling away.

Generally, we had more good luck with the weather and most of the time past with plenty of sunshine and clear skies although it was pretty chilly when you got off the train. On the second day, when we were on the platform having a walk we started to notice tiny snow-flakes landing all around. We were back on the train just in time to watch a mesmerising blizzard covering the landscape in white from the comfort and warmth of our cabin.

We sampled some of the culinary delights available from the stalls on the platform for our dinner. There was a selection of fried stuffed pastries of various different shapes and sizes and some sandwiches and sausage rolls. Using our well established technique of 'point and hope' we ended up with a tasty spread of yet more Russian sparkling wine, smoked cheese, cabbage stuffed doughnuts and a sandwich stuffed with sausages that looked disconcertingly raw.

We had our compass out on the table for the journey and it reassuringly pointed west for pretty much the entire time. The stations and marker posts every kilometre indicating the distance to Moscow helped us to track our route on the map and so we were ready for the Europe-Asia boundary point on the third day. It was just as well we were watching out for it as the modest white post 1777km from Moscow flashed by pretty quickly. We had woken that day to a noticeably greener landscape. There was grass growing on the ground, bright young leaves on the trees, fields filled with spring flowers and blossom on the trees. This was a marked contrast to the bleak Mongolian desert and Siberian steppe that we had been through. With an average speed of less than 60km/h we knew we still had a fair amount of time left on the train but we were happy to be back in our home continent and excited to see everything from the countryside to the cows and the clouds in the sky starting to look more familiar.

We had thought that we should have at least one night on the train drinking Vodka as is the Russian way - apparently once the top has been taken off a bottle, it should be crushed on the ground and there is no stopping until the bottle is empty. However, we discovered that they do not sell vodka on the train platform, so we celebrated with more bubbly and beer instead.

Waking the next morning, we were pleased that we had spent our last night on the train but it wasn't until early evening that we would arrive in Moscow so we had a few more hours to go. The last few hours almost felt like the longest, but we arrived in Moscow Yaroslavl station bang on time having hugely enjoyed the incredible journey. Beijing felt like the 7857km away that it is; however, at the same time, travelling the whole way overland made it seem somehow closer. We had been worried about what we would do during all the time on the trains, but did not feel bored the whole way; the relaxing rhythm of life on the train - watching the scenery change, reading and reflecting on our year away and the future providing plenty of stimulation.

When we arrived in Moscow, we had instructions on how to get to the apartment that we had rented for the two nights which involved a mercifully short trip on the Moscow Metro. We had heard that the stations were grand but were still surprised by the ornate decor, chandeliers and acres of marble and granite.

Our apartment was a short walk away from one of the main train and metro stations, Kievskaya, in a large 1950s apartment block. We were fairly amazed to find ourselves in a place with two big bedrooms, a lounge and a kitchen - quite a change from what we have got used to and certainly from the small cabin on the train. It was quite late by the time that we got ourselves settled, so we had a relaxing night, enjoying the apartment and cooking ourselves a meal with more to play with than just boiling water (plus another bottle of sparkling wine of course).

Finding our way around Moscow was not as hard as we had thought it might be but we were glad to have had some time and practice with the Cyrillic alphabet before. We spent the day walking around the centre - mainly the Kremlin, Red Square and St Basil's Cathedral area. It was a perfect sunny day interrupted only briefly by a couple of short showers during which we were safely undercover enjoying a beer with one of Drew's friends who is now living in Moscow with his fiancee. We were delighted that they came in to town to meet us and we really enjoyed the day.

We had not really known what to expect of Moscow and were pleasantly surprised by how attractive the streets seemed with some beautiful, huge, old buildings and pretty parks. Whilst our friends agreed with our observations, we were reminded of how different a place it is during the long, cold winters when we're told the weather deprives the inhabitants of colour in their surroundings, freezes cars, makes it hard to breathe and generally makes people pretty miserable. We really liked what we saw of it though and the locals were certainly all out enjoying the spring sunshine as well.

We finished off our evening and more-or-less our whole year away with a fantastic dinner at a Georgian restaurant with interesting flat breads, cooked meats and delicious salads. All too quickly it was time for them to go back home and get ready for the next week at work and for us to go back to our apartment and get packed up ready for the last step of our journey home. It was hard to imagine that we would be in the UK the next day; it felt more like the end of a two week holiday than a whole year away but we were very ready to get home and stop wandering.

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