What fun we had today. We walked one block across to 5th Avenue and took it all the way up to Central Park. It was an extremely hot day, hotter than yesterday. Bryan and I were sucking down the water.
The first place we went into was the Toy's R Us store at Times Square. It is so big it has a mini Ferris Wheel inside it. That's definitely one way to get you into a store - install a Ferris Wheel!!
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| Toy's R Us Ferris Wheel |
We stayed in there for a few minutes enjoying the cool air-conditioning and watching the ride. Then headed out continuing our walk up Fifth Avenue.
In the heat and with the number of people, it took us a good while to get up to the exclusive part of town - I would say about an hour (we also stopped for a quick lunch). Be aware that the exclusive stores are not near Times Square. We went past SAKS Fifth Avenue, Trump Towers, Tiffany's and all the usual designer stores that you get on Castlereagh street but the designer stores here are 100 times the size of the stores in Sydney.
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| How cool are these clutch hand bags - not that expensive just very ornate! |
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| Trump Tower and to the left of Trump Tower is Tiffany's |
And no I did not go into any of them! How good am I? With the heat I looked like a train wreck and besides my goal for today was Central Park.
Now, Central Park is massive so if you want to see all of it, make sure you give yourself a good part of a day. Oh yeah- It makes our Centennial Park look like a tiny little back yard!
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| There are lots of street artists (willing to draw your portrait) as you enter the park |
When we entered
Central Park there was a street performance group doing dancing and acrobatics. They were really good and got the crowd involved in their performance.
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| Check out this guy flying through the air! |
After we finished watching the street performers we walked under the most lovely bridge (still within the park). The artwork was amazing. The ceiling was all done in tiles and the stone walls were painted frescos. Truly beautiful! What made it even more amazing was a violinist busker playing Pacabel's Canon. It was echoing through the walkway creating the most magical space.
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| A beautiful old carousel that has been restored which adults and children can ride. |
Next we went passed the Boathouse. If you have seen the movie "The Ugly Truth" Katherine Heigl's sister (in the movie) wants to get married in the Boat House and this is the boat house they are referring to. You can hire boats and row around a small part of Central Park.
We then went into a section of the park called "The Rambles". It has this name because there are lots of curvy paths through a large section of woods or forest. It was so quiet in here you could barely hear the noise of the city.
As we were stumbling through "The Rambles" we came across "Belvedere Castle" a miniature castle that was built as a lookout across the park in 1869 and then in the early 1900's became a weather station.
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| Belvedere Castle |
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| The city skyline from the top of Belvedere Castle |
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| Another view of the city skyline from the top of Belvedere Castle |
We continued walking up to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir (half way up the park) past the softball fields and basketball courts and decided we had enough for the day so we headed for the nearest subway for home.
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| It's real! They do actually play basketball in the various courts around the city. I thought it was just a movie stunt! |
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| New York subway |
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| New York subway train |
