Day one NYC

Waking early and taking on a ‘Starbucks style’ take out breakfast I walk the 6 blocks to get to the tour bus pick up site. [Advise: get there early in the day to avoid monstrous queues]. The buses are open topped and each have their own ‘host’ or ‘Experienced guide’ who have their own personality and stories to embellish the sights on route J This does make the transit interesting while you spend the entire time looking from one tall skyscraper to the next, occasionally distracted by the nestled churches and tenement buildings.
There are a number of stops on route around the city [both uptown and downtown] allowing passengers to really explore the city sites (ok, if you have the time). The city has developed clearly distinguished areas such as ‘Little Italy’, ‘China Town’, ‘Greenwich Village’, ‘Harlem’ and ‘Soho’ all with their own characteristic charms. I particularly love Greenwich Village with its quiet, tree lined streets including unique shopping opportunities and family run Cafés [on top of this it has magnificent views of the Empire State Building and is the only place where our tour guide is unable to use his microphone due to noise control] GV is also the home area for the Sex in the City Crew ;).

Ahem… Moving on… Taking the bus all the way to the last stop at Battery Park you are rewarded with a distant sight of the elegantly majestic ‘Statue of Liberty’. To be honest with you - this is the real highlight of the USA for me - I am a HUGE fan of sculpture and this landmark represents so much history… Just blows me away, even from a distance!! To get a great view of the statue there are several options (Helicopter, Blimp!! Of Ferry)… I choose the ferry (Cheapest optiom ;))… $13 with a ticket purchased from inside the Clinton fort [Including entrance to the pedestal - if you book a day in advance out of season this should be fine… but… During the summer you need to book at least a week in advance!! No extra cost… yet limited to 3000 people per day… If you want to climb to the crown - and yes this is now open - you need to book months ahead as there are only 240 tickets released for each day 0_0 So once again I don’t get to climb into the crown [Next time… And yes there will be a next time]!! The ranger in the statue does state however that the experience now is far better than the three hour ‘but view’ followed by a 10 second glimpse of from the crowns windows that it used to be when there was free access with queuing… Now you get to spend 10 minutes in the crown with a ranger on hand to give you a guided viewing AND answer any questions that you may have… Fabulous idea.

Back on the tour bus I am whisked through Wall Street with its narrow passages between colossal sharply designed sky scrapers and their communal parks [tiny rest areas] for business lunches on the go - some even have bubbling fountains, open greens, lots of granite style benches and in some cases public works of art including ‘The Bull’ of Wall Street - I think he has clearly been rubbed for good fortune a little as many areas on the Bronze statue have been brought to a high shine ;) [you will be fighting for a space next to him if at ground level, but from the top of the tour bus you get a wonderful view].

Heading back up towards mid-down via the Eastside I find a more ‘run down’ area with graffiti clearly evident on many of the buildings and some of them are boarded up or under repair - I am particularly interested to see a whole community area named as the immigrants neighbourhood!! Hmm… Here, in the centre of the partitioned streets are public walkways with several wheels attached to beams… I can only imagine what they are for…