Day 2 (Friday): The Kremlin and Novodevichy Convent
Since lunch won't be until 2 p.m. at the earliest, chow down on blinis and salmon at the National's extravagant breakfast buffet (included in the room rate). What you probably know about the Kremlin is that it's a fourteenth-century walled fort containing several of Russia's most important museums, churches, and palaces. What you might not know is that you'll cover at least three miles on foot; it will take a minimum of four hours; and no chairs, snacks, or bottled water will be available to help you along.

If your English-speaking guide meets you at your hotel at 9:30 a.m., you can get into the Kremlin as soon as it opens, at 10 a.m. (Last year, in high season only, the Kremlin opened at 9:30 for nonresidents; that could happen again this year.) Don't miss the ancient thrones, costumes, and Fabergé eggs in the Armory or the Orlov diamond (the world's fourth-largest) and other imperial regalia in the Diamond Vault. The diadems look like lace made from diamonds, and the jeweled flowers are so delicate and shimmery you'll think they're blowing in the wind.

Your morning inside the crammed Kremlin will leave you craving tranquillity. So after a salad at Eat & Talk (7 Mokhovaya; 7-495-961-2193; entrées, $10–$22)—the closest spot for a quick bite—head for one of Moscow's few picturesque oases: Novodevichy Convent. Take the red line from Biblioteka Imeni Lenina four stops to Sportivnaya and you'll be just a ten-minute walk away. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is where czars confined their wives and sisters when they proved inconvenient, forcing them to take the veil and relinquish their worldly goods. Unless you're a history nut, don't spend time indoors; just see the gardens and the seventeenth-century Baroque Russian architecture, stop at Smolensk Cathedral (a five-domed white wedding cake of a church), and then head for beautiful, leafy Novodevichy Cemetery, across the street. The artistic gravestones of the country's most prestigious cemetery speak volumes about the Russian people—who they consider important and what traits and accomplishments they value.

By the time you return to your hotel via metro, you will have walked six to eight miles today. If that's too much, consider splurging on a car and driver after lunch. The car might allow you the time and energy for a late-afternoon visit to Arbat Street—a pedestrian boulevard of cafés, shops, and stalls that is Moscow's version of Montmartre—before returning to your hotel. A great place for dinner is the stylish and popular Café Pushkin (26A Tverskoy; 7-95-229-5590; entrées, $25–$65).

Day 3 (Saturday): Moscow's Soviet Secrets
Yesterday was all about pre-eighteenth-century Russia. St. Petersburg is the best place to learn about the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but only in Moscow can you begin to comprehend what happened to Russia in the twentieth century. First stop: Lenin's Tomb, right on Red Square, where the chemically preserved body of the Soviet Union's founder has been on public display for 83 years. The mausoleum opens at 10 a.m., but the line grows exponentially starting at 9:30—and it's one of the few lines that Exeter International is not always able to bypass—so be there with your guide at 9:25. Lenin's body itself may strike you as macabre or diminished—it's surprisingly puny and waxy—but the whole bizarre process is a visceral education in Communist culture. Bags, cameras, cell phones, and sharp or glass objects are not allowed inside. If you have no guide to hold them for you while you're in the tomb, you must check them at the State Historical Museum (which means leaving the line you've been standing in, checking your stuff, then waiting all over again). After you've passed through the metal detector, the unspoken rules are: Don't speak or smile inside the mausoleum (these are signs of irreverence); keep your hands out of your pockets (so the guards know you're not grabbing a weapon); stand just a few inches behind the person in front of you (the Russian way to wait); do not stray from the line as you file past Lenin's body. After the tomb, you will pass the burial sites of Stalin and other Communist muckety-mucks (graves that had the Russians around me shaking with tears). You will end up a 15-minute walk from the place where you checked your cell phone and camera. Sound like too much of a hassle? Remember that Lenin's body won't be around forever: Many powerful Russians object to such idolatry of a mass murderer—not to mention the millions of dollars spent on chemical baths for his body—and want him buried.