A few days in the Big Apple

New York is, of course, one of the great cities of the world. So even though I’ve been there twice already, I was quite looking forward to a third visit with Mathilde, to kick off our US holiday.

Our transatlantic flight took us into JFK, where we stayed the 1st night, at a hotel in Jamaica, near the airport. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we jumped on the subway and made our way into New York. Before starting our exploration of the Big Apple, we made our way across the Hudson River into adjacent Union City in New Jersey, where we were staying at a rented flat.

Our exploration of the city didn’t start very well, since we were hit by decidedly dodgy weather. Luckily, this is New York, so there are plenty of museums to visit during a rainy day. After some deliberation, we decided upon the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), and it turned out to be an excellent choice indeed. In spite of the rather steep admission price, it’s probably the most impressive modern art gallery I’ve been to – they have a truly impressive collection.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around New York (the rain had thankfully stopped), checking out Times Square, Madison Square Garden and Macy’s (which I have to say was a bit disappointing, it basically seems to be some kind of a giant discount store, except with normal department house prices??). We finished off a very pleasant first day with dinner at a Cuban eatery back in Union City. (and I mean really authentic Cuban food – turns out that Union City has a rather large Latino community).

We started the next day with a walk at Chelsea, which is supposed to be the place to be for young and upcoming artists. To be honest, we were a bit disappointed by what we saw. At least the part where we walked around was not particularly charming, and the galleries seemed to be more for people wanting to buy art, than admire it. But what was really cool though, was Chelsea Market, a kind of covered market with loads of cool little shops, restaurants and cafes. Kind of a mixture of the Borough market and Camden town markets in London, but with a New York touch to it.

From there, we made our way to Chinatown & Little Italy. There’s not much Italian about Little Italy, except perhaps the restaurant names – which seemed rather touristy. Chinatown is far more authentic, and we found a very nice little place to have Dim Sum in for lunch. That was an authentic experience indeed – the waiters hardly spoke any English at all! We also visited the biggest Buddhist temple in New York; Mahayana temple.

We then headed over to Greenwich Village, which we really enjoyed. It’s a very nice place to stroll around, kind of more human-sized than downtown Manhattan. Greenwich village is of course where the hippies of New York used to hang out, and even though most hippies may be long gone, the place has a very nice and laid back feel to it, in part thanks to the large student population living here. Lots of cozy-looking bars and eateries about as well. We ended up having dinner in John’s pizzeria, a real New York institution. And for good reason, the gigantic pizzas are delicious!

The following day, we planned to tackle the financial district as well as Brooklyn. We started by a walk around the financial district, checking out town hall, Ground Zero as well as Saint-Patrick’s cathedral. Actually, we ended up spending most of the time shopping in Century 21, a rather big department store with quite attractive discounts on clothes, watches and all sorts of other stuff. I ended up taking part in a real shopping spree – which is not something I make a habit of, believe me!

We then walked across East River, along the Brooklyn Bridge over to Brooklyn. Now that is one darn impressive bridge, and what’s nice is that there is a pedestrian level on it. So walking across it is a mo

re pleasant experience than for example walking across Golden Gate (which we did last year). And the views towards Manhattan and Brooklyn are of course stunning – especially since we were finally blessed with proper sunshine!



Brooklyn was also a real revelation. It’s obviously an up and coming part of New York, and it is certainly a much calmer place than Manhattan. It’s pretty much a city in its own right…

We started our walk in Brooklyn Heights, a rather posh part of town, with its famous brownstones (it’s what they call houses built from brownstone, a type of sandstone). After a rather nice lunch in a local lunch restaurant, we made our way to Prospect Park, which I guess is the second-most famous park in New York. It’s certainly a very nice place to stroll around (and photograph squirrels!). We finished off a super day with some Japanese food in Easter Village (excellent food, and excellent value for money as well!)

The next day was our last full day in New York. Of course, no visit to New York is complete without taking a bout out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so we decided to do just that. Actually, we decided not to stop at the Statue of Liberty (apparently it’s not possible to visit the statue itself due to security measures, and well, you can see the statue pretty well from the boat) and spend our time in Ellis Island, which I reckon is one of the most interesting places to visit in New York. Ellis Island is, of course, the place where a rather large number of immigrants were “welcomed” on their way to the US. The place is a really fascinating place – it just oozes with history.

One other thing we had on our list was doing the High Line. The High Line is basically a 2 km stretch of elevated railroad track that was left to get overgrown after years of abandon. In recent years it’s been “spruced up” and is basically these days a very nice way and scenic footpath in Western Manhattan. Really a brilliant idea – we loved the place.

Next item on our list was lunch at the Spotted Pig, a real New York culinary institution, apparently. What it seemed to be, to us, is more like pretentious, overpriced gastro-pub. I did like my dish, but well, it was just a bit too expensive and minimalistic for what we paid (probably the Michelin star had something to do with that…). Anyway, with our stomachs only half-full, we made our way to the next stop on our visit, New York Public Library, a fantastic place to spend an afternoon. The place is truly monumental – the Rose Reading Room is especially impressive. Certainly one of the coolest free things to do in New York!

Of course, another thing that has to be done in New York is check out the aerial view of Manhattan from one of the skyscrapers. Instead of doing the classic – Empire State Building, we decided to go to the “Top of the Rock” (Rockefeller Centre). Rockefeller Centre itself is a rather interesting complex of buildings (there’s a huge lego shop, an ice skating rink, the famous Christmas tree, the since-removed Diego Rivera painting (that you may remember from the movie Frida). And the view from the rooftop is, well, simply spectacular. We caught out Manhattan just as night was falling, so pretty much perfect timing. We finished off another perfect day in New York with a proper, juicy, American burger at Five Napkin Burger.

That nearly brought an end to our visit – but we did have one more morning to spend in the Big Apple. We decided to finish our visit with another highlight – Central Park. Unfortunately the sun kept hidden this morning – but we still had a very good time strolling around this oasis of peace and quiet in the middle of Manhattan.


Then, alas, it was time for us to catch our flight to sunny California… Well, it had been an absolutely wonderful few days. New York is definitely up there among the truly great cities in the world – and it seems I’ve barely scratched the surfaces after my three visits. So I reckon we just might be back…