X-Mas in New York
18-23 DECEMBER 2014
DAY 1
Italy - New York
A trip to New York, and during the Christmas period was among my dreams in the closet since I was watching Home Alone in my childhood. As happy as a little girl, I unwrap the brand new Lonely Planet, which together with an Emirates MXP-JFK plane ticket is my Christmas present.
I spend the 8 hours of flight that separate us from the Big Apple devouring the travel guide, so don't expect detailed planned trip, as I usually like to do, but something more spontaneous and impromptu.
We arrive in the city centre late in the evening, after an endless queue at the airport for the visa check. We move from the subway to our accommodation with the nose up, pointing to the skyscrapers that surround us. An unusual feeling, as everything was so new and so familiar at the same time. Street signs, street names, traffic lights, the incessant background noise of sirens and traffic, the yellow taxis crowding the streets. Like a crazy tourist I photograph with the phone any object, animated and not, around me, until we reach the hotel, with a view of the illuminated World Trade Centre that cuts through the night fog. The time is perfect to go to sleep and immediately amortize the jet lag.
HOTEL: Club Quarters Hotel WTC
DAY 2
Tribeca, Mid Town
We wake up with the same panorama, in daylight. Needless to say, I wake up Nic very early, perhaps at 7 a.m., and he cannot protest since he had deliberately condemned himself to 4 days of frenetic visits next to a crazy Christmas-grinch.
The hotel behind Ground Zero allows us to visit in the early morning the picturesque site where the notorious Twin Towers were built. The water tanks that now appear in place of the foundations of the towers are huge and are framed by balustrades in which are engraved the names of the victims of the attack. Every day these are decorated with white roses, that some employees were placing right in our presence. There is no one (it was rather early, I know, thanks Nic) and we manage to visit the site undisturbed. We take the subway to the centre.
First destination Times Square, and after the obligatory stop at the Hard Rock Cafe, ritual photo to all the advertising boards, having paid 2$ to a guy dressed as a puppet of the Muppet, evil brother of Kermit the Frog, who has slipped into one of our photos and has demanded with force a "spontaneous" tip, we make a tour in the streets of the centre from the Fifth Avenue on, passing through Broadway and entering and leaving all the fancy souvenir shops of the series I<3NY.
Run up against the Empire State building, we decide to take advantage of the wonderful day to go up to enjoy the view, which is breathtaking. From Brooklyn to the Statue of Liberty, there's nothing you can't see from a height of 300 m and a camera isn't enough to capture the beauty of that view.
Fast lunch walking through the covered market of the Grand Central Station and again walking through the streets of Manhattan, peeking at some cult shop like Bloomingdale or Macy's.
We go, as a must, to the Rockfeller Centre, the only disappointment of the magical NY: do you know those images of an immense skating rink with the infamous Christmas tree, where the characters of the movies skate romantically hand in hand? It's just a small skating rink the size of a swimming pool, equally underground and open-air, too crowded to skate freely.
We sneak out of the crowd that surrounds it, and reach to the first cultural destination of our stay, the Museum of Modern Art, better known as MoMA. On the way, a typical New York food truck draws our attention, and we take a break for an early dinner of meat, yogurt and rice. The MoMA has been worthy of expectation, full of masterpieces that must be admired at least once in a lifetime. Times Square at sunset and a walk to the hotel ended the day.
STREET FOOD: The Halal Guys
DAY 3
Upper West-East Side, Broadway
We have breakfast in a restaurant near the hotel, with an unhealthy pile of pancakes and a bagel with salmon and avocado and candyfloss to sweeten the bill.
BREAKFAST: George's
Determined to try to go and see one of Broadway's historic shows, which are sold at a discounted price the same day, we wait in line for a while at the ticket office and we manage to get tickets for the musical Chicago at a reduced rate, for about $60 each. Sold on a first come first come first served basis, we have no hope to buy them at the central ticket office, which is located in Times Square, but we go to the TKTS South Street Seaport, near Wall Street, which is much less frequented. We earn two tickets and then we take a stroll to Wall Street, which is practically deserted. The rest of the day is spent strolling through the bare Central Park, decidedly unattractive in winter, in the area of the NY Opera and the American Ballet School, through the Natural History Museum.
In the evening we reach the Guggenheim Museum, where we join an endless line that surrounds the entire block, for the weekly free admission to the exhibition. To kill the time we get two hot dogs purchased at the inevitable food truck in front of the entrance. The Guggenheim has fulfilled all expectations I had from the university books of architecture: we walk along the spiral, intrigued more by the building than by the exhibition itself.
Tonight it's Broadway. We enter the theater, tiny but full of atmosphere and enjoy the musical, definitely recommended. After the show we turn in vain around to look for a restaurant recommended by the guide, which we will never find, and tired of the search we take refuge in the first fast food that we find: we sit in diner-style sofas and we enjoy a spartan and giant cheeseburger accompanied by an immoderate amount of chips.
DINNER: Park Café
DAY 4
Liberty Island, Brooklyn Bridge
The night before we booked two tickets online for the visit to the Statue of Liberty. We go to the boarding of the boat that takes us from Manhattan to Liberty Island. The trip is short, but the view is exceptional: on one side the imposing curtain of skyscrapers of Manhattan, on the other the Statue of Liberty, which becomes larger and larger as we approach the island. You can visit the giant statue climbing up to the crown, but unfortunately the tickets were sold out, and we were happy enough to walk on the basement and peek under the skirt.
Back on the mainland, we get lost in the streets of Seaport: we browse through the shops, admire some Christmas ice skating shows, and then we huddle in a tiny cafè with tarnished windows to try to warm up in front of a hot cinnamon cider and two bagels with butter.
CAFÈ: Made Fresh Daily
Almost at dusk we decide to put our noses out of our warm shelter again, and we head towards the Brooklyn Bridge. At sunset this place offers an exceptional view of Manhattan slowly lighting up, the Statue of Liberty standing out against the red sun and the traffic that lights up the bridge beneath our feet. We spend more than two hours walking on the bridge and watching this wonderful spectacle.
We cross Little Italy on foot and return to the hotel. We dine in a nearby restaurant that promised to be among the best for burgers in town. In fact, the dinner was not disappointing, except for the size of the gourmet burgers, almost a finger food, and their inversely proportional price.
DINNER: Bill's Bar & Burger
DAY 5
New York - Italy
We head to Soho this morning, a very fashionable district, where we find a magnificent cafè for an exceptional morning breakfast.
BREAKFAST: Ruby's
On our last day in NY we decide to devote ourselves to a relentless shopping session. We cross some streets full of shops near the hotel, fill bags and empty our wallets for Christmas. We cross China Town in the rain and return to downtown Manhattan, where we warm up with mulled wine in the kiosks of the Christmas markets that enlights Bryant Park. We didn't do it because we were leaving the same day, but for those who want to skate on ice, the rink that is set up in this park is much more spacious and picturesque than that of the Rockfeller Center. Go against the trend!
We end our day with a proper slice of NY Cheesecake from Dean & DeLuca and with extreme delay we run to the hotel and then to the airport to return to Italy just in time for Christmas.
This content is NOT SPONSORED, but based on my genuine personal experience. Spontaneous opinions, positive and negative, shareable or not, that I hope will help to live better travel experiences. My advice is a guide to lead you through world explorations, but the real journey, you build it!
