New York Part Two.

Hello again! As promised, here's the second part of our epic weekend in New York.

On Sunday was a trip to Top of the Rock at Rockafellar Centre to capture the incredible views of city, taking in Central Park, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building just to name a few. We followed this with heading into Central Park itself, which I had only seen in the freezing cold weather, so to be able to experience it on a perfect hot sunny day was amazing.  We watched families picnic, kids running around and playing on their bikes and even people on the lake in little row boats.  We sat with a drink and dipped our toes in the water to cool down.  While we sat, we could see some ripples appearing on the waters surface, we looked closer and all of a sudden a turtle appeared!  It swam by us several times almost like it was putting on a little performance for us and the other people sitting by the water.  I was so excited, I love turtles, I could have watched it for hours bobbing up and down.  We spent the rest of the day exploring different parts of the city but made sure we got back to our hotel early as we had a night tour of the city booked.  We stopped for an early dinner at a restaurant called Five Napkins, it's apparently named this as the burgers are so juicy you need five napkins to wipe up after and they definitely didn't disappoint.

After literally rolling out of the restaurant, feeling very satisfyingly stuffed we headed to the meeting point for the Night Tour bus.  We took our seats on the top deck to start our journey,  We passed through Times Square, up to Little Italy and then onto Soho.  The lady who was conducting our tour was a very proud New Yorker and entertained us with lots of interesting facts.  As we passed over the Brooklyn Bridge I had to pull on a cardigan as despite the warm evening it gets very windy crossing the bridge.  We stopped briefly for pictures of the Manhattan skyline and to take in our incredible surroundings.  Once in Brooklyn we passed through different neighbourhoods and saw kids shooting hoops on the big basketball courts by their houses.  The time seemed to fly by as we saw more stunning sights and listened to the fun facts and interesting history of the city.

The bus tour dropped us off in the perfect spot as we were hoping to go to the Empire State Building. The queue was pretty long but moved quite quickly.  You can choose what tickets you'd like, whether to just go to the main observation deck on the 86th floor or go the whole hog and go up to the top deck on the 102nd floor.  We chose the latter.  The observatory on the 86th floor was incredible, we stepped outside and you could see a 360 degree view of New York City.  We chose to go at night as seeing the city lit up is unbelievable!  Nick isn't the biggest fan of heights but the wall that surrounds the observation deck is quite high and there is a wire fence on top of that which makes it feel very secure even when it's a bit windy.  The only downside to the fence is it obscures your pictures a little.  After wandering around for a while and taking lots of photos we made our way up to the 102nd floor.  This floor is completely enclosed but the windows are extremely large and clear so you have an even better view of the city and pictures are a bit easier to take.  It's quite small up there, so when busy, can feel a little crowded but we didn't stay up there for that long because as awesome as the view is, you can only take so many photos.  Some might think it's a bit odd or perhaps a waste of money to do Top of the Rock and the Empire State in one day but I loved them both and think being able to see the views in the daytime and at night is totally worth the time and money.

Monday was our last day and we saved this day for shopping   First stop was Macys, it's so large that it covers almost an entire New York City block.  I took my time wandering around the designer bags and then the make up counters and Nick followed me around like the lovely boyfriend he is.  He struggled to hide his extreme happiness when I said I was done so imagine his disappointment when I informed him we were off to Bloomingdales next.  After dragging Nick around the shops for several hours (to be fair he was pretty good about it considering it was about a million degrees), shopping bags in hand we opted for one last Starbucks strawberry refresher and made our way to Bryant park for half an hour in the sun before we left for the airport.  Bryant park was right next to our hotel and is honestly one of the most beautiful parks I have ever seen.  It's not very big but has so much character.  It has a space that shows outdoor plays and movies, an outdoor library, little huts that sell everything from pastries to alcohol and my most favourite part of all, a little section where you can play board games!  There was a group of older ladies enjoying a game of backgammon, a brother teaching his sister to play chess and couples playing scrabble.  It was amazing to sit and people watch while we enjoyed the last few moments of our time in such an incredible city.

So that was our long weekend in the Big Apple.  The famous song says "I left my heart in San Francisco" but I definitely left mine in New York City!

As always thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my ramblings.  My next post will be along shortly.

Take care

Kel x