Monday 29 October 2012

adventures of a New York wanderer | day 3

Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Well, the breakfasts we ate in New York were truly epic! For our second full day in the city and Hazel and I ventured out to a near-by cafe for a hearty, if not-so-healthy, breakfast to prepare us for another day of wandering. Now in our defence, both our breakfasts had fruit (part of our 5-a-day!), but lets be honest, any goodness gained from the yummy berries was well and truly wiped out by the badness of the syrup and whipped cream. Yes, whipped cream as part of breakfast. Indulgent in the extreme.

Hazel’s waffles with strawberries … 


My brioche French toast with mixed fruit …


The only negative comment about breakfast was the price. We paid $50 (including tip) which we both felt was a pretty pricey! But I guess higher prices should be expected when eating out so close to Time Square.

After breakfast, we each bought tickets for one of the hop-on / hop-off tour buses that run throughout the city. We went with the Gray Line’s, All Tours Ticket which was valid for 48hrs and allowed the most flexibility about our destinations as Midtown, Downtown, Uptown and Night Tours were all included in the price ($49). 

Our first trip on the bus tour took us Downtown and past some of the city’s amazing architecture …
 
 


We got off at the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street and headed over towards the Brooklyn Bridge, and from the volume of people walking across the bridge, it looked like everyone else in New York had had the same idea. It was heaving …
 


As it turned out, there was actually a charity event taking place and lots of ladies (and a few gents) were walking and/or running across the bridge to raise money for various Breast Cancer charities (October is breast cancer awareness all over the world).
 
 


After the bridge, we had intended to visit the World Trade Centre memorial site. However we hadn’t pre-booked and when we arrived, the next access time wasn’t for another 3.5hrs! We really didn’t want to hang around for that long, so a quick change of plan and we headed down Wall Street …
 


We couldn’t find the famous bull though (well, not on this day!)

We then headed down to the Staten Island Ferry terminal and embarked for a FREE 25minute ferry ride across to Staten Island and right past the Statue of Liberty …
 
 


I still can’t get over the fact that the ferry is completely free of charge and the view of Manhattan and Lady Liberty are AMAZING!

It was about 4pm by the time we returned back to Manhattan and we were both starting to feel a bit weary (well, we had been walking for around 6hrs almost non-stop!) and so we jumped back onto the tour bus and headed back to Midtown and our hotel … however, this wasn’t the end of our day. Oh no!

We headed back out again a couple of hours later and took the Night Tour of the city, which included heading over the Brooklyn Bridge and into Brooklyn itself. Our tour guide on the bus was a lovely lady, who’s name I foolishly failed to get and my goodness, she was so knowledgeable. She gave so many fact about the sites we were seeing and the places we were driving through, it was amazing! And she had a great sense of humour too and really engaged with the passenger on the bus, including playing on some cross-ocean banter with Hazel and I.

Regrettably, I didn’t bring my “proper” camera along for the trip, so I only managed to snap a couple of grainy images on my mobile phone, this one just before the bus set off was probably the best and shows Time Square in all it’s luminous glory …
 

It was gone 10pm by the time we finally called it a day (or night) and once again, we were both out for the count all the second our heads hit our pillows.

Ticked off items on "must see / do / eat" list for this day included:
  • Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge
  • Seeing the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry
  • Pepperoni pizza, by the slice
  • Seeing the building of One World Trade Centre (aka Freedom Tower)
  • Seeing the twinkling lights of the Manhattan skyline at night

2 comments:

kym said...

Sue, I've been enjoying all your photos of NY. Good thing your trip was not planned for this week. Thanks for sharing!

listgirl said...

I love all the things you have on your list and how they were being checked off! Your photos are beautiful. Looked like a nice week to visit weather-wise. Currently NYC is under a lot of water. :(