Top 10 attractions/things to see and do in…

This post will be the first one of a new section: travelling.

Who doesn’t like to travel? Well, I do! And that’s why I’d like to show you what I saw during one of my recent trips. It was also the first trip I took with my new reflex, excluding the weekend I spent in London a month before (when I went to see Bradley Cooper perform on stage ♥ ), which I will tell you about some other time.

This summer I went for the first time to the incredible and magical New York City!

First of all, I didn’t really know what to expect from NYC. I only knew it from the movies and television so I was really excited to go there but it sort of seemed as if I were going somewhere unreal.

Well, one thing is sure: New York City exceeded my expectations!

1. Ellis Island & The Statue of Liberty

    

   

   

   
   The Statue of Liberty is sooo beautiful and it leaves you totally speachless! It is entirely made of copper… so at the beginning, when it was built, it had a reddish colour, which then became green because of oxidation.

   

   The Museum of Immigration in Ellis Island is very interesting and you can learn some stories on the first immigrants who arrived in New York and what they had to go through to remain in the US.

    

2. The Empire State Building
   

   
   
   It is definitely the symbol of the Big Apple and it was the real protagonist in many films and tv shows, King Kong above all, and you can see it from almost everywhere in NYC. There is just one place from where you cannot see it: the Empire State Building itself. 😉 There’s also a nice museum inside, which tells you the story of its construction and there are some interesting photos on display. But be prepared to go through security checks, it will take a while, just like in any museum or exhibition in NYC.

3. Central Park
   

   
   A true green lung for the city, this park is immense! It is 843 acres (3,4 square km) wide and inside you can find lakes, fountains, playing fields (baseball, football, volleyball, etc.), a castle (Belvedere Castle), you can rent boats and bikes and spot lots of squirrels and a wide variety of birds! I had to use a map not to get lost along the many paths among the trees, as they form a sort of labyrinth.

    

4. One World Trade Center

   It is the new World Trade Center, also called Freedom Tower, which officially opened on May 28th, 2015. It is 541 m high and people can climb up to the 100th floor where the Observatory is. I must say, it is pretty expensive (32$) but totally worth it: the lift/elevator ride is amazing ⎼I won’t spoil the surprise, so go and see for yourself!⎼ and the view from the top is totally breathtaking! You’ll be likely to spend a lot of time walking around to see New York from any possible point of view, also considering the price of the admission ticket.
   Even though you’ll probably see many people line up to enter, you’ll have no problem as long as you book your entry time online. In this way, you’ll simply have to be there 15 minutes earlier and you’ll be just fine.

    

5. 9/11 Memorial & Museum
   
   

   The 9/11 Memorial & Museum is just beside the new World Trade Center. Make sure you bring some Kleenex as you may get a little emotional. You first enter the Memorial’s plaza where the two twin pools sit. They are exactly where the original Twin Towers stood and they carry the names of all the people who died in the 1993 and 2001 attacks.
   

   The Museum displays a lot of material on the events of 9/11: videos, phone calls, artifacts and photos, all showing what happened on that day.Isn’t it incredible how almost 15 years have already passed..?!

6. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

   It is a group of buildings in Lincoln Square. First of all, Hearst Plaza where you find the Juilliard School, a performing arts conservatory, famous for appearing and being mentioned in many movies, and, in front of it, the Paul Milstein Pool and Terrace; other important buildings within the center include the Metropolitan Opera House, the Lincoln Center Theater and the big Josie Robertson Plaza, with the beautiful Revson Fountain. The name of the fountain may not ring a bell to you, but you can see it in movies like Ghostbusters, or in Season 6 of Sex and the City.

    

   

   

   

    

7. Top of the Rock and Rockefeller Center

   Another observatory on top of a huge skyscraper: that’s the beauty of NYC!
   Who remembers the giant Christmas tree or the big ice-skating rink where lots of movie scenes were filmed? If you want to see them in person, this is the place where you have to go. If it’s Christmas time, of course. Otherwise you’ll be able to enjoy a complex of 19 buildings which form one of the biggest private constructions in the world. You’ll find any sort of art-déco decorations on buildings and streets and of course the main stage is occupied by the GE Building, at the top of which is the Top of the Rock, a three-floor observatory from where you have a fantastic view on New York City and from where you can see the Empire State Building.

    

8. Wall Street

   

   It is the heart of the financial district and the location for many many movies!

   The main buildings and things to see include the Federal Hall, the Trump Building, the New York Stock Exchange, the Deutsche Bank Building and of course the Charging Bull.I was there on a Sunday so all the people who were there were mainly tourists, but I guess that during the week you’ll see the real Wall Street, with its buzzing crowd of workers.

    

9. Brooklyn Bridge
   

   Make sure you cross the bridge before the sunset, so you can watch the sun go down from Brooklyn Bridge Park and behind Manhattan buildings.
   

   
   I saw it from a sort of bay next to Jane’s Carousel, where there are some steps. Be prepared to see lots of people with their cameras and tripods to photograph the landscape with all the different types of
   lights while the evening approaches. And you just simply sit there and look at the beauty of what you have in front of your eyes and enjoy the moment. 🙂 As soon as it gets dark though you must eat something! And the best idea is to stay in Brooklyn, of course, and have dinner there. But that’s another story…

10. Eating and movie locations!

I will write another post on this subject, as it’s gonna need lots of photos and suggestions. 😉

Of course there are soooo many things to see in NYC besides the ones I’ve just told you about, but I’ll write another post on that if you want me to.

Have you ever been to New York? What do you think of it? What’s the most beautiful city you’ve seen in the world so far? Tell us about it!

The Curly

 

© all photos were taken by The Curly