Since our plane landed very early, yesterday we had practically a whole day left to explore. The weather was quite nice, quite sunny when we started, although it did get a bit cloudy and a bit cool, never going above 15 degrees Celsius.

Around noon we hopped on the Q line of the subway, which is literally 5 minutes from our bed and breakfast, and headed for Manhattan. The subway actually emerges at the Manhattan Bridge and we got a good view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the southeastern tip of Manhattan.

We decided to get off at Times Square, thinking that this would be a good place to start exploring New York City. Times Square, with all its neon advertising signs and promotional displays, is something else. The sidewalks were completely packed with people strolling and tons of promoters handing out flyers for Broadway shows, comedy shows and other entertainment events. There is so much advertising in the Times Square area with flashing lights and screens everywhere, that the individual ads actually started to cross each other in my mind, probably not the effect the advertisers were trying to achieve. In fact, the hustle and bustle of this area is enormous and can be a bit overwhelming.

We walked around that area for a while, and we walked through the Rockefeller Center, although we didn’t get to explore the entire complex. We then located Grand Central Terminal and walked through this grand and historic train station that opened in 1913. There are over 100 commuter rail platforms at Grand Central and they all depart from a glorious central concourse.

The east side of Grand Central opens almost directly into the Chrysler Building, and considering I’m a big fan of Art Deco skyscrapers, I had to go inside this 1929 masterpiece. As a tourist you can only access the lobby, but the central area with its mural on the ceiling and the authentic Art Deco elevators (and their doors covered in wood marquetry) are worth a small detour.

We then meandered our way to Central Park, mostly on Lexington and Fifth Avenues. We passed the famous Plaza Hotel (apparently just closed) and to the southern end of Central Park, a masterpiece of landscape design and 850 acres of much-needed recreational space by famed landscape designer Frederick Law Olmstead. We only explored the southern end, including Dairy and Sheep Meadow, and headed for Central Park West with all its stately apartment buildings, including the Dakota Building, in front of which John Lennon was shot in 1980. Strawberry Fields Hillside Garden It was dedicated to his memory.

Everything is blooming here right now, and New York City is definitely a few weeks ahead of Toronto in terms of the horticultural cycle. There was something in the air, and I had to sneeze about a hundred times, and at the end of the day we both had to take allergy medication as we were both fighting the main symptoms of hay fever.

Then, a short subway ride later, we reappeared in Greenwich Village, a beautiful neighborhood of brownstone row houses, and enjoyed the atmosphere. We ended up at a nice little restaurant on 7th Avenue called “Pennyfeathers” where we had a lovely dinner on a screened in porch so we could enjoy life on the street.

A couple of subway rides later we returned to our temporary home in Brooklyn, where we lay in bed exhausted from all our walking, trying to catch up on some rest for the next day.