Our trip to Europe and the States 2013: New York, New York

Lobby of our Hotel - The New Yorker

View from our Room on the 32nd floor

We arrived in New York City last evening the 2nd of October, having said goodbye to the friends we met on the New England trip. Had a slow start today after the hectic pace that we kept on the bus tour. Decided to walk today and left our hotel in Mid Town Manhattan, on 34th street, and headed to Times square.

Time Square 1

Time Square 2

View at Columbus Circle

New York at the moment has so much maintenance and construction happening that things are a little disrupted, and Time Square in particular. Had a look around, took some photos :-), and then continued up to Central Park, where we purchased some lunch from the Whole Food Market at Columbus Circle. Went over to the park and watched the world go by, for an hour or so, while we had lunch.

Watching the world go by

Pond in Central Park

Lake in the Park

With the tanks refilled we walked up through Central Park to 96th street and then back down 5th Ave, returning to the hotel at 7-00pm, a good long walk. It was great to get out again, after sitting on a bus for long periods of time over the last month or so.

Love New York, so much energy, excitement, noise and things to see and do. Not affected by the shut down at all today, hopefully things are sorted by the time we get to Washington on the weekend, although I'm not holding my breath!!

Beautiful Bridge in Central Park

Here are a few of the pictures from the day...

Some of the wildlife

Impressive Buildings

amazing shopping

Beautiful Interiors of the Buildings

Breakfast in a NY Diner

Our second day in the city today and another extended walk, this time south from the Hotel, which is on 34th Street. We began by walking the "Highline" which is a 1.6km walkway created from a 2.3km section of disused railway track that has now been turned into a park. Great space, have a look at this link to learn some more about it..

On the Highline

We then took the following route through Lower Manhattan. Went across town and down Broadway, through Greenwich Village, Soho, and bought some lunch at "Dean & Deluca" then continued on to a park by City Hall where we stopped for lunch.

Highline Walkway

Brooklyn Bridge

It was then off across the Brooklyn Bridge, back down to the World Trade Centre memorial, which has been done really well. Spent a couple of hours there before returning to the hotel via Battery Park, Wall Street and back up Broadway. Probably covered about 20km during the day, so it was a fair hike, but enjoyable. One day left here so we will probably pickout a couple of places to visit and spend some time having a good look around them.

Massive Buildings 1

Massive Buildings 2

Part of the 9/11 memorial

One of the waterfalls on Tower 2 site

Every person who died is named

Statue of Liberty from Battery Park

The Bull at Wall St

NY Stock Exchange

Empire State Building as we got back to Hotel

The Chrysler Building

Grand Central Station

Last day in NY city today, and I have had a very slow one. Pretty tired after the last couple of days and I had some work to do so I stayed at the hotel and caught up on the work and Ruth went and had a look and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mid afternoon we both went for a walk to the New York City library, Grand Central Station, bought some food and had dinner in Bryant Park and observed people for an hour or so. Why pay to go and see great places when you can get into these for free!!

Tomorrow we catch the train to Washington, hopefully they let us in :-)