Christmas on Ice

After another fine breakfast at the Manhattan Diner we walked over to Central Park. We had a great walk around Central Park and then popped along to get a look at the Guggenheim Museum – which, wait for it, was covered in scaffolding! The shop wasn’t very good either and we weren’t in the mood for looking round the exhibits. We went back to Central Park and Becky and John went ice-skating. Becky was fantastic, doing rings around everyone else. John was entertaining in his own way!

From Central Park we took the underground to Times Square and walked to the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings to get pictures of them in the day. We stopped off at the New York Public Library, a lovely building both inside and out.

Sarah suggested an hour in Greenwich Village as it sounded nice in our guidebook. But, we got off at the wrong end of Bleeker Street and it wasn’t what the guide book had raved about! We had to have our coffee and cake in an ‘Au Bon Café’, which wasn’t bon at all as the service was painfully slow and the hot chocolate was foul (John did liked his pecan delight so Sarah and I didn’t feel quite so bad for dragging Becky and John to a crappy area). We did eventually find the nice bit of Greenwich Village but unfortunately didn’t have too much time to walk around and enjoy it. On the way there we found Washington Square Park.

From Greenwich Village we got the tube to the Rockerfeller Centre and got caught up in the crowds admiring the huge tree and skating rink in front of the building. We had Chinese in the basement of the Rockerfeller and then went to see the Rockettes Christmas Show. It was fantastic (apart from the nativity scene at the end which was just thrown in to appease the religious crowd) and really put us in the mood for Christmas. When we got back to the hotel we had our cheap champagne and chocolates to celebrate.