Chapter 17: Our illegal visit to Russia

Fascinating time spent in Moscow and Leningrad

This chapter is mostly drawn from my diary written at the time in 1968. The visit was made when diplomatic relations between Australia and the Soviet Union were very poor because of the Cold War. Australian journalists were not admitted to the USSR, but on my visa application I wrote “tape editor” which raised no suspicions. On Rosemary’s visa application, she wrote “secretary” which was true.

We were up at 5.30am to catch our 8.30am Air India flight to Moscow. There was one good thing about getting up at that shattering hour: We were leaving India which we found depressing because of the filth, the smells and the poverty. We were beginning to develop a pathological fear of everything Indian. Meals became quite a trial because we suspected everything of being tainted.

We left India as we arrived -- with taxi drivers trying to “con” us into parting with huge fares.

Our Air India plane left on schedule and was only a quarter full. We were very lucky to get the very front row of seats in the economy section, with a window seat. We had a beautiful and spectacular view of the Himalayas.

The service on the plane was better than that of Air France, but still not a patch on Qantas. As we neared Moscow, we were in for a shock. We were told the temperature there was minus eight degrees centigrade (18 degrees Fahrenheit). We had expected cold weather, but not that cold! Especially after the 90 degrees Fahrenheit or so of Delhi.

Our plane took an eternity to descend through the cloud cover over Moscow. We first saw the ground at about 1000 feet -- and there was a blanket of snow over everything. And the snow was really coming down. Although Australia has some of the finest snowfields in the world, we’d not been to them and so this was our first experience of snow.

Things were very quiet at the airport, but it seemed to take ages to get through customs. It was something of a nerve-wracking experience, having heard all those terrible stories about the Communists. And our nerves weren’t helped when a chap we’d met up with on the plane was hauled off to the search room. He was “frisked” and his pockets emptied. The trouble was he’d not realised that he had to declare his watches and cuff links. That was strange. We had to declare Rosemary’s rings, our watches and my cuff links, but not the radio, the tape recorder or the cameras. In spite of what happened to our acquaintance, the Soviet customs men didn’t even bother to open our cases, nor were any questions asked about my claimed employment as a “tape editor”.

The Intourist people put us aboard a car for the city. The first hotel we were taken to was full, so we were sent to another -- the Metropole. It’s about a hundred yards from the Kremlin and Red Square and across the road from the Bolshoi Theatre.

Our room is enormous by Western standards. There was nothing flash about it, but it had a bathroom-toilet, a writing desk, dressing tables and twin beds. The Russians made up their beds quite differently to what we did. They had a normal bottom sheet to cover the mattress, but the top sheet was like a big pillowcase. The blanket, which is more like a piece of carpet, was folded and placed inside the sheet. The whole lot them lay on the bed like a quilt. The pillows were also different. They were square rather than rectangle, and really a bit too big for our liking.

In spite of the cold outside, the hotel was very warm. All the buildings in Russian cities were centrally heated. Central heating and hot water were community services — that is, buildings were connected to them just as they were to gas and electricity.

We had our first meal in Russia tonight. The dining room is incredible. It appears to have once been a ballroom for the aristocracy. It is very ornate, complete with statues and even a fountain. The service is shockingly slow and we’ve been told this is the norm for Russia. Apparently the Russians hurry for no-one, but no-one. Still, the meal was plentiful and quite good. Few of the waiters spoke English, but the menu had an English translation, so we managed to blunder by.

These are more recent photos of the Metropole, but it hasn’t changed much from the outside or in the dining area. It is now a five star hotel, so I guess the food, the service and the rooms are vastly superior to when we were there.

Our first impression of Russian officials was not very good. They were unbelievably frumpy and very off-hand about everything.

We went to the Dutch Embassy tonight to deliver a letter to the wife of an attaché. She is a former Bendigo girl, and Rosemary’s mother knew her mother. We went to the embassy by taxi, and that was an experience! The hotel service bureau wrote down the address in Russian, but the taxi drivers didn’t know the street. The Russians -- for defence reasons -- did not print accurate or comprehensive maps. Nor did they have such things as telephone directories. After much shouting and pantomime, a full Plenary Session of Moscow’s taxi drivers was held to figure out where to take us.

We had an enjoyable evening at the Dutch Embassy and Rosemary was loaned a thick coat to deal with the unexpected cold. Then we were guided back to our hotel through the Metro (underground railway). The Metro was extremely efficient. Although we changed trains three times, we never had to wait more than 30 seconds for a connection. The fare was the equivalent of five Australia cents -- to anywhere.

We’re having to get used to yet another currency. The Russian one is a little easier than the others because its basic unit -- the rouble -- is the exchange rate of the Australian dollar.

OCTOBER 28, 1968:

It was snowing again this morning and it was bitterly cold outside. We went on a three-hour bus tour of the city and had to listen to a great spiel about the wonders of Socialist achievement -- both culturally and towards peace. We have to admit a sin, but we found most of the Russian architecture singularly dull and unimpressive. The only interesting buildings appeared to be the old churches and St Basil’s Cathedral. Red flags and massive portraits of Lenin are everywhere in preparation for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Komsomol -- the Communist Youth League. Our guide told us that there would be a “manifestation” (a rally) in Red Square tomorrow.

We can’t get over the drabness of everything -- particularly the people. The people wear very poor quality clothes by our standards and they seem to have no fashion sense. Few of the women wear make-up.

Mind you, things are against them. The Russian diet is a high calorie one, and to add to this, good underwear for women was very scarce and expensive.

Tourists really stand out in this city. Rosemary’s mini-skirts attracted a great deal of attention, although not as much as in India where people openly stopped in the streets to point her out, stare and giggle.

It was so cold today Rosemary decided to buy a pair of fleecy-lined boots or shoes. So we caught a taxi to a berioska -- a shop solely for people with foreign currency.

The goods represented the best available in the USSR. Most of what we saw came from England. The fleecy-lined shoes she bought were from Italy. The range of goods was very limited. For instance, there were only a couple of sizes in each type of shoes available. The situation wasn’t made any easier by the fact that only one shop assistant spoke any English.

The shop is about nine miles from the centre of Moscow -- and we really ran into trouble trying to get a taxi for the return trip. It took nearly half an hour to get one. Then, the driver couldn’t understand where we wanted to go. He finally got underway when I began pointing frantically in the direction I thought we should be going. The day was saved when I remembered that I was carrying Bolshoi tickets. I waved them at him and he took us back to the heart of the city.

We’ve been agreeably surprised to find that we can move about as we like, and that there are no restrictions to speak of on cameras. Not so long ago, it was illegal to photograph airports, bridges and railway stations.

We’re continuing to find the Russian food in hotels good, but the service unreliable, to say the least. It was impossible to predict the length of a meal. One meal might take only 15 minutes; another 90 minutes. We could best describe the food as being the equivalent of a better type of hotel counter lunch in Australia.

The food in hotels is quite cheap. It’s quite easy to buy a hearty three-course meal for $A2. Tonight we bought some caviar. There was quite enough for two, and the price was only $A1. The price of wines is comparable to ours, but soft drinks are expensive. A three quarter size bottle costs anything from 24 cents to 40 cents.

A band turned up in the Metropole dining hall tonight. Although the music was old hat by our standards, it was pretty decadent stuff for Russia. No doubt the band will be banished to Siberia for tainting Soviet culture.

We’ve been listening to Radio Moscow a lot. The music is very good, but the station keeps going off air without warning. Ever heard the tune Midnight in Moscow? Well, the melody is in fact taken from the time gongs on Radio Moscow. The gongs are played on the hour and half hour.

OCTOBER 29, 1968:

The weather today was even colder than yesterday. We went for a stroll around Red Square and inside the Kremlin walls. Most of the buildings in the Kremlin were closed for the day. It was so cold my movie camera froze. As a further demonstration of the weather, ice cream stands in the streets display their wares in the open. I bought an ice cream and nearly broke my teeth on it. The temperature went up significantly about lunch time -- no doubt in honour of the “manifestation”.

The rally began about 2.00pm and we wandered across to see it. We couldn’t get much of a view, so we returned to the hotel to watch it on TV. Brezhnev and Kosygin were supposed to be at the rally, but we couldn’t pick them out. What with the choirs, the bands and the rhetoric, it was all pretty stirring stuff, but for all we know, the speakers could have been announcing a drop in the price of potatoes.

There was very little fresh fruit or vegetables in Moscow. And what there was, was very dear. Apples -- and not very good ones at that -- cost about 45 cents each in the hotels. We saw poor-looking pears on sale in the shops for about 90 cents a pound.

We wandered briefly through the GUM store (a sort of Myers, Moscow). GUM is pronounced goom (as in boom) and the initials stand for Gosudarstvenyy Universalnyy Magazin—State Department Store. The display of goods appeared wide, but the quality -- particularly such things as woollens -- was poor. We’ve been told that many things displayed in the windows are not in fact in stock.

One thing that has struck us is the apparent friendly relations between the civilian police and the population. The relationship is much more informal than in Australia. For example, we saw a policeman in full uniform walking hand-in-hand with a young girl. Naturally, we’ve not been able to establish the relationship between the Secret Police -- the KGB -- and the population.

Another Interesting Fact: The plumbing in toilet bowls was back to front to ours. That is, the outlet was at the front of the bowl, rather than at the back. It’s our considered opinion that the Socialist toilet bowl is more effective than the Capitalist bowl. It also uses less water. This evening, a Singaporean we’d met up with and I visited the Lenin Museum. It was only moderately interesting because we couldn’t read the labels on the exhibits.

The Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet. The alphabet includes a lot of letters from ours, but most of them have different sounds. Some examples: PECTOPAH is pronounced restaurant, and ЛЕНИН is pronounced Lenin. So between a different alphabet and a different language, the communication problem was considerable. Tonight we saw the Bolshoi Company perform Sleeping Beauty at the Kremlin Hall of Conferences. (The Bolshoi Theatre itself was being used for opera).

The Hall of Conferences is a magnificent modern building just inside the Kremlin’s main gate which we were surprised to find was open.

It’s so far the only really modern building we’ve seen. It was a real knock-out and seated 6000 people. We had very good seats in the centre front of the back stalls. The seats cost $A3. The hall has a buffet on the fourth floor, so we had our evening meal there. The buffet remained open from about 5.00pm, and the Russians nipped upstairs during intervals for a bite to eat and a glass of their rather sweet and weak beer.

As for the ballet itself, neither of us is qualified to comment on technique. All we can say is that the staging was breath-taking. Never have we seen such a stage setting. Everything was just right. The money for the seats was well spent. The Russians obviously enjoyed the performance. They kept shouting “bravo”, then gathered around the stage at the end of the show to demonstrate their approval.

Another point of interest: There were no ushers of usherettes, and everyone had to find his or her own seat. However, there were women doorkeepers. They were dressed like Melbourne bus conductresses and built like Festival Hall bouncers. On the subject of clothes again, we continue to be amazed at the never-ending drabness of the Soviet Women. They weren’t even able to make themselves presentable for the Bolshoi.

OCTOBER 30, 1968:

Today we managed to buy an English-language newspaper. It was the English version of the Moscow News. From this we learnt the cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoi was still in orbit. There was also a fairly long article about the American Apollo space flight. The article was written with good grace and praised the “courage and composure” of the American astronauts. An unexpected story was one about an American scientist discovering a new type of lens for glasses. The story and an accompanying photo were credited to Newsweek magazine.

We visited Lenin’s Mausoleum in Red Square this morning. The Russians keep Lenin embalmed in a glass case for all the world to pay honour. He looked like a store dummy -- perhaps it was — although I guess it’s heretical to say so. The queue of “worshippers” was enormous. By the time the mausoleum opens each morning at 11.00am, the queue snaked across Red Square and through the gardens along the Kremlin wall. At our guess, the queue would have been at least half-a-mile long. Tourists are given preference at certain times of the day, and we didn’t have to queue for more than 15 minutes.

The mausoleum is quite impressive. It’s a structure of polished stone built in the shadow of the Kremlin wall. The body is on display several flight of stairs below ground level. Fifteen armed soldiers stand guard around the coffin. Snow began falling again as we left the mausoleum, so we took a walk through GYM again to warm up.

We’re beginning to pick up a few Russian words such as “nyet” (no), “da” (yes),”twarlette”(toilet), “Ingleesh” (English), “Orstralie” (Australia), and “tarxee” (taxi).

We decided on a side visit to Leningrad (St Petersburg). Our train left on schedule at 1.30pm. Leningrad is about 400 miles from Moscow, but in spite of the distance, the entire track was electrified. Our train was fitted with aircraft seats and was very smooth, quiet and fast. We were very impressed.

We found the countryside interesting. Every few miles there were villages of little old wooden huts. What with the snow, the scene was straight from the film Dr Zhivago. We couldn’t but wonder how the peasants kept their homes warm in the winter temperatures which sometimes dropped to minus 30 degrees centigrade.

There appeared to be few tourists on the train, and we found ourselves a little self-conscious. Although we’d only packed one case for the Leningrad trip -- the oldest one at that -- we must have appeared to be very rich to the other passengers -- most of whom carried their belongings in very small battered cases.

Our conductress must have been fathered by a regimental sergeant major -- or the Russian equivalent. She marched her squat, ample frame -- boots thudding ominously on the floor -- up and down the corridor, barking orders to all within her considerable earshot. Heaven only knows what she was saying, but it sounded pretty serious stuff. At one point we heard her saying “Orstralie”, and we wondered whether she was alerting the passengers in our carriage to our presence.

Generally speaking, we’ve found the Russian people very willing to help a tourist in difficulties. And we had some of those difficulties at Leningrad station when we couldn’t find the Intourist representative. I searched the station for one without luck and finally sought the help of a porter. He and an assortment of passengers held a conference and it was decided to take us to a taxi. But when we got into the street, we found the Intourist man who’d been warming himself in his car! It didn’t seem to worry him in the slightest that he’d failed to meet us at the carriage.

We were taken to the Astoria Hotel. Our room was enormous. There was a big bathroom, a writing desk, a dining table, twin beds, enough cupboard space for Elizabeth Taylor, and even a foyer. The hotel was built about the turn of the century -- no doubt to accommodate visiting nobility. It’s certainly sumptuous, although now a little faded in its glory.

We felt a bit peckish, so went to the dining room. We weren’t prepared for what met our eyes and ears. There -- believe it or not -- was a rock ‘n’ roll band. And so help us, they were playing and singing Beatles tunes. The top of the bill, incredible as it may seem, was a belly dancer. Our faith in the USSR’s Cultural Purity was shattered!

OCTOBER 31, 1968:

When we arrived in Leningrad yesterday there was no snow and the temperature was quite mild. We awoke this morning to find we’d brought snow with us. It was coming down quite heavily. The view from our bedroom was beautiful. We looked across a small park to St. Isaac’s Cathedral -- a magnificent structure with Gothic columns and similar in appearance to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The carpet of snow added that extra touch to the view. It was interesting that despite the cold there were people happily sitting in the park.

This morning we went on a guided tour by car of Leningrad. We were taken around the many palaces and monuments with a minimum of propaganda. Probably the high spots were visits to the Palace Square and the Winter Palace where the revolution started over 50 years ago. We also saw the cruiser Aurora which fired the blank shot that signalled the storming of the Winter Palace and the start of the revolution.

The harbour was full of warships. I asked our guide if I could film them. “Of course,” she said with a shrug. This was astonishing, given the general paranoia that exists in the Soviet Union about anything that might be considered spying.

Because we were the only people on the tour, we were able to chat to the guide informally. We were able to make comparisons between wages and costs. Our guide told us that the income of her family unit (herself, her husband, two children and her mother) was about $A440 a month. The rent for their flat (including electricity, gas, cold and hot water, and central heating) was about $A12 a month. This was based on the size of the flat and family income.

Most of their money seemed to go on food and clothing. Food, although cheap in the hotels when compared with Australia, was very dear to buy in shops. Clothing was also dear and usually out of fashion and of poor quality.

The Russians are real culture vultures. In Leningrad alone, there are more than 50 museum-art galleries. There are also numerous live theatres. Snow began falling during the tour, and by lunch-time it was really “flaking” down (is that the correct word?).

After lunch we went for a stroll through the snow to the Hermitage -- the largest museum and art gallery in the USSR. It occupies several buildings -- one of them the Winter Palace. We enjoyed the walk through the snow -- even though it was cold. The many parks and wide streets in Leningrad looked beautiful. The Hermitage itself was magnificent. There were rooms full of original works by such artists as Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Latrec. There were also a couple of Rafaels and a sculpture by Michaelangelo.

Most of the ornate decoration was overlaid with gold leaf. The only fault we could find was the lighting, which was poor in some sections. By the time we left to return to the hotel, it was dark. (It got dark shortly before 5.00pm).

The snow-covered parks looked even more beautiful at night. The streets were very quiet because there’s not much road traffic in Russia apart from trams, buses, taxis and official cars. The cheapest car in Russia cost $A5000 and the waiting list was long. An indication of the sparsity of road traffic is the fact that Leningrad had only four service stations.

Going back to the trams, they were very quiet and put Melbourne’s clattering monstrosities to shame. They were so quiet in fact that we were almost run down by one that sneaked up on us.

NOVEMBER 1, 1968:

It was still snowing, and there was at least a foot of snow outside. The snow trucks, snow ploughs and snow scoops were out in force keeping the roads clear. Gangs of women were keeping the footpaths clear with birch brooms and flat wide tin shovels. Most of the street cleaning in Russia appeared to be done by women. Workmen were in the parks today covering gardens plots and statues with wooden boxes for the winter.

Many adults and children have been in the park outside our window, sitting or playing as if it’s a fine spring day. As mentioned earlier, the streets are wide. It’s the same for Moscow. After the Second World War, whole areas were cleared for parks and avenues. In a number of cases, historic buildings which survived the Nazi bombardments were moved back, bit by bit.

Two shifty characters pulled us up in the street today and politely inquired where we’d come from. When we told them Australia, they offered to buy anything we had to sell and to exchange our American dollars at the rate of two roubles for a dollar. This is almost double the official rate. We’d been warned before coming to Russia that there was a pretty active black market caused by a shortage of consumer goods, coupled with an inflated official value for the rouble. The two chaps were very persuasive, but we decided to keep our noses clean in Russia.

We managed today to get hold of a copy of the international edition of the New York Herald Tribune. It was nearly a week old and cost 60 cents, but it was still news from outside. We discovered that American newspapers are sold under the counter at Intourist hotels -- apparently only to approved persons. We listened to Radio Leningrad’s “hit parade” today. The Top of the Pops included Ain’t She Sweet, an old Bing Crosby number, and Marty Robbins singing Walk on By.

Tonight we saw the opera Rigaletto at the Gorky Theatre. As we walked into the theatre entrance I discovered my wallet missing. I nearly had a heart attack because, among other things, the wallet contained the theatre tickets, my Soviet customs declaration (needed to exchange money) and some other important papers.

Just as I was about to phone the hotel to see if I’d dropped the wallet there, our Intourist driver returned with the wallet in his hand. It had fallen out of my pocket onto the front seat. The driver insisted I prove the wallet was mine, and I was horrified when I opened it to discover that it still contained my Victoria Police Press Pass.

The driver saw that my photograph was on it and happily satisfied it was my wallet, went on his way. I can only assume that he didn’t read English. I could have been in trouble because I had lied on my visa application that I was a “tape editor”.

That crisis over, we went into the theatre. It was not the Hall of Conferences. It was more like a hall in an Australian outback town. The seats were wooden with the barest of padding. As if the lack of padding wasn’t enough, the angle of the seats make it hard not to slip off them. Nevertheless, the actual production (in Russian) was beautifully staged, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although Rosemary wearied of it.

In good Russian style, the opera finished nearly half an hour late -- at 10.55pm. As we had to catch the midnight Red Arrow train to Moscow, there was one hell of a rush back to the hotel to collect our luggage, then on to the station.

An English girl we’d attended the theatre with told us that when she caught the Red Arrow from Moscow to Leningrad, she was put in a twin sleeper with a “great hairy Russian gentleman”. She had to do some hard talking to get the sleeper to herself.

The Russians see nothing wrong with mixed sleepers, claiming that as a very moral people, no Great Hairy Russian Gentleman would take advantage of the situation. The girl wasn’t prepared to take the chance. Anyway, Rosemary decided to take her chances with me! We had a comfortable sleeper. The train wasn’t as good as Australia’s Southern Aurora, but it was okay for our needs.

NOVEMBER 2, 1968:

We had a sound sleep on the train and awoke to find the snow in Moscow had gone. It was positively warm, and I even ventured out into the streets without an overcoat. Our accommodation was the Berlin Hotel, just around the corner from the Metropole.

Our suite (and there’s no other way to describe it) was enormous. It was the size of our flat in Prahran. A curtained alcove contained the beds, a big bathroom and a foyer. The furniture was straight from an antique shop. One cupboard had inlaid pictures on the front. Like the other hotels, the lifts were incredibly old and slow, and were enclosed in a wire cage.

Another shifty character sidled up to us in the street today and wanted to change money. It was no deal.

We went on a tour of the Kremlin today. We were taken through the Armoury Museum and the cathedrals and found them only moderately interesting. Actually, we’ve just about had our fill of museums etc.

Getting back to the Berlin Hotel, its restaurant was very elaborate. It went one better than the Metropole. Its fountain was full of fish. And whenever a diner ordered a fish meal, one was netted from the fountain and taken to the kitchen to be cooked.

The Russians mixed their drinks in a rather curious fashion. For instance, we’ve seen them drinking wine and chasing it down with their particularly ghastly brand of raspberry lemonade. Ugh!

Privates in the Russian Army are very poorly dressed, and often very untidy and dirty. I’m surprised they’re allowed out in public. On the other hand, the officers are well turned out. Not many Russians know English, but the kids know enough to get by with the tourists. Like asking for chewing gum!

We went for another adventure today. We decided to explore the Metro. We had instructions written in Russian, and whenever we became lost (which was often) we showed them to the nearest kindly-looking local.

The Metro is an astonishing prestige job. All the stations are different from each other in design. We got off the train at each stop to look around. One station would have chandeliers, another glass mosaics, and another statues.

The thing that really impressed us was their cleanliness. The stations all appeared to be new, but they were in fact built more than 25 years ago.

The Russian waiters really excelled themselves this evening. It took two hours to be served dinner. They really take some beating for non-service. We decided that seeing it would be our last big meal in Russia that we would try the Soviet stuff of life - caviar and vodka. My God! The Russians must have steel throats and stomachs. We quite liked the caviar, but the vodka was murder. It really took some drinking. Never again -- certainly not Russian-fashion (neat) anyway.

While we were not impressed by vodka, the Russians did make a good cup of tea. It was usually served in a glass with a slice of lemon. Butter was regarded as an extra on the menu. This means it had to be ordered. Not that it’s much anyway. It was unsalted and rather pallid.

Something that has struck us during our visit was the number of Germans here and the number of people who spoke German, possibly because they came from Soviet-occupied East Germany. The second language in Russia was alleged to be English, but we’d say German every time. Whenever we became lost or needed help, we’d be asked if we spoke German. Never if we spoke English. The guide brushed the question aside or flatly denied it. But we still stick with our impressions. We even spoke with a German in Russian uniform.

NOVEMBER 3, 1968:

This morning I returned a coat loaned to Rosemary by the Bendigo girl at the Dutch Embassy. Recalling my past experiences with the taxis, I went armed with the full directions in Russian. But to no use. The useless driver got lost again, and it cost me $A1.05 plus a tip for a 45 cent trip. And to top it off, I had to walk part of the way back after giving up in disgust.

Rehearsals were going on this morning for another “manifestation” in Red Square. The rallies must be good for the Soviet mind and spirit.

Today was our last day in Russia, and we really “lorded” it out to the airport. Our Intourist car was Russia’s only limousine. The back seat was so far back from the driver we almost had to shout to him.

The car looked like something from the 1930s, but it was very quiet and comfortable. We went through customs at the airport with the minimum of fuss. No attempt was made to open our cases.

The weather was very mild, although a little misty. I took some film of the airport -- something we hadn’t noticed on our arrival was that the airport appeared to be in control of the military. Soldiers appeared to be in charge of everything, and a soldier even walked with us to our plane.

Our Air India Boeing 707 left right on schedule. And what should we be served for lunch? Caviar. We’re getting a little sick of it. After all, it’s only salted fish eggs. Although it’s only weeks since leaving Australia, it seems months ago. We were exhausted.

Looking back on our visit to Russia, we found most of the people basically honest. For instance, there were no safe deposits at hotels (at least we never saw any) and it was quite safe to leave valuables in the rooms. As for the country itself, we found it interesting, but we were glad to be leaving it - mainly because of the drabness of everything and the language problem.

Our flight to London took less than four hours. Most of the time we flew over cloud, but it broke just in time for us to see London from the air. It looked very pretty.