This is my second visit to New York and I think maybe Paul's fifth! Paul first took me to New York seven years ago to share with me just why he loves this city so much, to meet his friend Andy and also to ask me to marry him! That first trip to New York awakened my excitement for travelling and since that first trip seven years ago we've travelled to many different places experiencing new sights and cultures together. A trip to New York was long over due and we decided that this year we would go back to a favourite place of ours and because we like to try and go somewhere we've never been at least once a year, we turned it into a multi-centre trip (which is our favourite thing to do) and also booked to go to Mexico after New york.
Now we didn't do all the typical tourist things on this trip, as we'd done most of them on my first trip and you can imagine Paul's done them many times with the many times he's visited. This time we wanted to try and do a few things that we hadn't done the first time and we also had a few friends to visit too. Towards the end of this post I'll let you know the details of what we got up to on the first trip too! Just in case your planning your first trip to New York, this will then hopefully give you lots of ideas of what you can get up to and I'll also let you know some great spots for food too.
Day 1
Our first day was really just a travel day. We boarded our flight from Manchester airport just before 2pm and landed in New York just after half past 4 (NY time). Both times I've landed into JFK airport the queue has been ridiculously long for customs. However this time wasn't quite as bad as the first time, this was only over an hour of queueing whereas the first time it was well over two and half hours! Once we'd got through customs and collected our bags we made our way to the taxi rank. Now if you don't have transfers in with your holiday, you can do one of two things. Go to the taxi rank like we did, wait your turn to get into a cab and be dropped at your hotel. Taxi's are constantly going and coming from the airport so its a pretty quick option. There was quite a queue already when we joined the line, I think we joined at the it can take approx 20mins from this point, but it actually only took around 10minutes. The other option is to go to the collection point of the airport and get an Uber using their app. This can be quicker than waiting for a taxi, depending on how long the queue is.
We caught our cab to the hotel we were staying at which was called The Excelsior, its on the Upper west side between Columbus ave and west 81st street. It was right next door to Central park and to the Natural History Museum. When we checked in we got upgraded from a classic queen to classic double/double room, which is always nice. We were on the 15th floor with a great view of the city. The room was spacious for a New York hotel room, it looked dated but most of them do! The main thing was that it was clean and comfortable and it definitely was that.
We decided to unpack a few things before getting changed and heading out for something to eat. The place we decided to go to on our first night was Black Tap Craft Burgers & Bar, there are a few dotted around NY, we decided to go to the one in the Midtown area as this was just over a 30min walk from our hotel and we quite fancied a nice stroll after being sat down on a seven and half hour flight. It was around 9pm when we arrived on a Sunday evening and I was surprised how busy it was. We managed to get a couple of seats at the bar and both ordered a cocktail and a burger. Then for dessert we ordered a crazy shake to share. The food and drink here was delicious and well worth the 30min walk there and back. We very much needed that walk back to get the sugar rush out of our system from the crazy shake.
We decided to unpack a few things before getting changed and heading out for something to eat. The place we decided to go to on our first night was Black Tap Craft Burgers & Bar, there are a few dotted around NY, we decided to go to the one in the Midtown area as this was just over a 30min walk from our hotel and we quite fancied a nice stroll after being sat down on a seven and half hour flight. It was around 9pm when we arrived on a Sunday evening and I was surprised how busy it was. We managed to get a couple of seats at the bar and both ordered a cocktail and a burger. Then for dessert we ordered a crazy shake to share. The food and drink here was delicious and well worth the 30min walk there and back. We very much needed that walk back to get the sugar rush out of our system from the crazy shake.
Day 2
Our first proper day in New York! We started the day off by going to Bubby's for breakfast on Hudson street. I ordered the griddle special and Paul ordered the banana nut pancakes. Wow! both of these were delicious and if this was closer to our hotel I would have eaten here every morning! We chose to come here because it had great reviews and it was on the way to the 9/11 memorial.
We caught a subway from the National History Museum station and took the C line to Canal street station, were we only had a 5 minute walk to our breakfast destination. After our breakfast we headed to the 9/11 memorial, it was pretty much a straight 15min walk down Hudson street and Broadway street. The last time we came they had only just started building this memorial, so of course we wanted to see it finished and to pay our respects.
We caught a subway from the National History Museum station and took the C line to Canal street station, were we only had a 5 minute walk to our breakfast destination. After our breakfast we headed to the 9/11 memorial, it was pretty much a straight 15min walk down Hudson street and Broadway street. The last time we came they had only just started building this memorial, so of course we wanted to see it finished and to pay our respects.
After the memorial we took a short walk down Liberty St to Battery Park to find the exact bench where Paul proposed to me. We wanted to get a picture in this spot and we were also hoping to go and see the Statue of Liberty. We never got to go last time because the queue was 2 hours long and unbeknown to me at the time this is where Paul had planned to ask me to marry him, but he knew his nerves would never hold up in the 2hour queue and to be honest I didn't want to wait in a queue for that long either. Which is why we ended up sat on a bench in Battery Park over looking the Statue of liberty, when he finally popped the question.
Unfortunately we didn't go and see the Statue of Liberty up close again this time because crazy enough on a Monday there was an even longer queue than last time. This queue snaked through the park and up to the Staten Island ferry! Obviously this changed our plans quite a bit, which is why its always great to have a few back up plans. We had two options which we could have done, either go to Staten Island or Times Square.
We decided to go to Times Square and have a mooch around that area. We caught the subway at the South Ferry stop and took the 1 line all the way to Times Square. Once there we grabbed an ice cream from an Ice & Vice truck, we both went for the salted caramel option.(Freaking Delicious) We sat in the sunshine while we demolished our ice creams and gathered our energy before I dragged Paul into Sephora!!! (If you haven't already seen my Sephora haul check it out here) We went round a few more shops and sat on the red steps in Times Square, before walking the 30 minutes back to our hotel.
We rested up for a while before getting ready to go and visit our friend Andy. Our hotel wasn't too far from his apartment so we took a walk round to one of his local bars. We were meeting him at the Beacon bar, but it was closed until later due to some filming that Fox were doing. So he took us to another bar called the Arte Cafe were we caught up and enjoyed happy hour cocktails. From here we walked to a restaurant called Joanne Trattoria, which is actually owned by Lady Gaga's parents. Its a classic Italian restaurant and its some of the tastiest pasta I've ever had. I had the penne pork ragu and Paul had the Lasagna. Then we went back to the Beacon bar, had many more cocktails and just enjoyed the evening.
Day 3
The day started with us going to meet Andy for breakfast. We met him at a little French bakery were we had coffee's, Pan Au Choclat's and said our goodbyes as he was going on a little break himself. After breakfast we explored Central park. We went through central park last time we were here, but we only went around the outskirts of it. This time we went right into the heart of Central park and also went in search of the Alice in Wonderland statue. I love Alice in Wonderland so when I heard there was a statue in Central park I just had to find it. We walked in by Strawberry Fields, which is the memorial to John Lennon.
We then walked over to Bethseda Fountain and took a seat on the fountain and just took in our surroundings and all that was going on. There was actually a wedding taking place and so many wedding photo shoots all around Central Park.
We then set off to find the Alice in Wonderland statue, which is right near the Central park model boat pond.
We then walked over to Bethseda Fountain and took a seat on the fountain and just took in our surroundings and all that was going on. There was actually a wedding taking place and so many wedding photo shoots all around Central Park.
We then set off to find the Alice in Wonderland statue, which is right near the Central park model boat pond.
Our lovely long walk through Central Park certainly got our stomachs rumbling, so we took a walk back along a similar route that we'd walked in and headed to a Shake Shack that was near our hotel.
We went back to our hotel after lunch, rested for a bit and freshened back up as we were going to head into Brooklyn for the evening to meet another friend who was in New York on business. We never explored Brooklyn when we came last time so we thought we'd make the most of it and spend a good amount of time exploring Brooklyn ourselves before we met up with our friend Rob for a meal and drinks.
We wanted to walk over the bridge ourselves so we caught a subway from the Natural History Museum stop and took the C line to Fulton St. If you don't want to walk the bridge yourself you can get the same line straight across and get off at high street Brooklyn bridge station. It was a very hot day in New york when we walked over the bridge, so it took it out of us a bit more than normal, but once you got onto the heart of the bridge the wind helped cool you down. We took lots of snaps along our way over the bridge and took the views in.
Once over we made our way to Dumbo, which is short for down under the Manhattan bridge overpass.
We found some great photo spots while exploring this area. Particularly this shot of the Manhattan bridge perfectly framing the Empire state building. (You can take this picture yourself between Washington and front street)
We then took a walk through Brooklyn bridge park, got an Ice cream from Brooklyn Ice cream factory, then sat and took in the Manhattan skyline while enjoying some delicious ice cream.
Once over we made our way to Dumbo, which is short for down under the Manhattan bridge overpass.
We found some great photo spots while exploring this area. Particularly this shot of the Manhattan bridge perfectly framing the Empire state building. (You can take this picture yourself between Washington and front street)
We then took a walk through Brooklyn bridge park, got an Ice cream from Brooklyn Ice cream factory, then sat and took in the Manhattan skyline while enjoying some delicious ice cream.
Now I mentioned that it had been a ridiculously hot day in New York, I think it had reached 30 plus degrees, it was a very muggy stuffy day. Well all this crazy hot weather meant for even crazier weather to clear the air. While we were enjoying our ice creams we noticed that the sky was turning very grey. We thought we'd have about half an hour before the storm would actually reach us. But we soon realised that this storm was moving in very fast. Within minutes a massive thunderstorm had rolled in and in some parts of New York there had even been tornado's!
Everyone was running for shelter as the strong winds were not only blowing sand and grit in every ones faces but sun umbrellas where also being whipped up in the wind too! We quickly disposed of our ice creams and ducked into the nearest Starbucks, grabbed a drink and waited out the thunderstorm. Once the storm had died down we grabbed an Uber and made our way to the bar we were meeting Rob in. It took him over an hour to get from New York to Brooklyn due to the storm, Uber had hoicked their prices up and the subway wasn't running that well. It had been 3 years since we last saw Rob but it was like we'd never been apart. We caught up over food, drink and a game of pool.
Day 4
Our last day in New York, which was sad but with all the walking we'd done we were both ready for our next more relaxing destination. We grabbed breakfast from a place called Good Enough To Eat, which was about 5-10miute walk from our hotel.
Today was very grey and miserable day. It rained on and off all day, it would have been a good day to go to the Natural History Museum. Again its always good to have some back up options to go do in case it rains. But we visited last time we came and although we could have still gone as we would have still enjoyed it as much the second time. We decided to grab our rain macs and just get on with the day. We caught a subway from the Natural history Museum and got the C line to 14th St/8av and walked some of the high line. We took in some of the views from here before heading into Chelsea Market. This has got so many food stalls and quirky little shops. I was surprised by the size, I imagined that it was much bigger than what it was but it was still great to visit and pick up some tasty food while your there.
Today was very grey and miserable day. It rained on and off all day, it would have been a good day to go to the Natural History Museum. Again its always good to have some back up options to go do in case it rains. But we visited last time we came and although we could have still gone as we would have still enjoyed it as much the second time. We decided to grab our rain macs and just get on with the day. We caught a subway from the Natural history Museum and got the C line to 14th St/8av and walked some of the high line. We took in some of the views from here before heading into Chelsea Market. This has got so many food stalls and quirky little shops. I was surprised by the size, I imagined that it was much bigger than what it was but it was still great to visit and pick up some tasty food while your there.
We then went in search of a bakery. I had sugar cravings, I was in need of a cupcake! We ended up going to Magnolia bakery and I picked up a red velvet cupcake and Paul picked up fruit crisp. I was actually disappointed with my cupcake, it wasn't like your normal red velvet. The icing and the cake didn't really taste of anything. After our cake fail we decided to go back to the hotel and start our packing. We had an early flight and we were quite tired so we decided not to go out for a meal, but instead went to a deli and picked up some lattes, grilled cheese sandwiches and some little snacks to enjoy while we finished packing.
More places to visit
As I said earlier we didn't do a lot of the touristy things that everyone does when they come to New York, but that was because we did most of them the last time we came, so here are a few other things that you can do that I haven't mention already.
The Empire state building
This has amazing views of the city and is a must do if you haven't done this before.
This has amazing views of the city and is a must do if you haven't done this before.
The Rockafeller Centre
Again has amazing views of the city but you also get a great view of the Empire state Building.
Again has amazing views of the city but you also get a great view of the Empire state Building.
Great places to visit on a rainy day
It's always great to have a few back up ideas in case of rain, here a few things that we enjoyed doing when we were caught in the rain.
Places to Eat
We did a lot of research before we went to New York to find some great places to eat. Although we didn't get to eat at them all I thought I would share with you the ones I didn't mention above.
I hope you enjoyed seeing what we got up to in New York. If you want to know what we got up to in Mexico too, then keep your eyes peeled for that blog post coming soon.
If you have any questions about any of our trip or are looking for some more information then leave me a comment and I'll get back to you.
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