One great free thing to do in New York City is visit Central Park. My sister and I were in New York at the beginning of December. The weather was great that day, it had stopped raining and the sun had come out. It was like a beautiful Autumn day...in December! The leaves were still on the trees and were very colourful. We were able to wear our Fall jackets to walk around Central Park. It was the best of both worlds - Fall weather and Christmas decorations!
We entered from Central Park South and the first thing you see from that entrance is the famous stone bridge! The Gapstow Bridge is the bridge featured in famous movies about New York, including Home Alone: Lost in New York. We took some photos near the bridge and on it with views of the Plaza Hotel behind us.
We then wandered on. We came across Wollman Rink and watched people skating. We said hello to Santa Claus, who was greeting people there and continued on.
We wandered on across the Bow Bridge. This bridge is beautiful and crosses the manmade lake with the inspiring and original moniker, The Lake. We found a bench and sat by this bridge to do some people watching and relax.
There was a lot of activity in Central Park - musicians, dancers, actors, tourists - all doing their thing. It was a beautiful and peaceful outing and I recommend visiting Central Park if you are ever in New York City. It was one of the highlights of our stay.
~Angie
We entered from Central Park South and the first thing you see from that entrance is the famous stone bridge! The Gapstow Bridge is the bridge featured in famous movies about New York, including Home Alone: Lost in New York. We took some photos near the bridge and on it with views of the Plaza Hotel behind us.
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| Gapstow Bridge |
We then wandered on. We came across Wollman Rink and watched people skating. We said hello to Santa Claus, who was greeting people there and continued on.
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| Wollman Rink |
We continued on. There is a road not far from the rink where cars and the horse drawn carriages travel. We crossed that road and came upon the pathway also featured in movies. The Mall and Literary Walk is where spies in movies meet. It is a famous tree-lined avenue with benches all along. We came across a girl selling paintings. They were beautiful and I bought one from her on my way out of the park later on.
After the Mall, we came upon an advertisement for a book fair happening just under the Bethseda Terrace. Unfortunately we couldn't get down to have a look because it turned out that a TV show called Time After Time was doing a location shoot there. The book fair was actually part of the set. We watched the actors for quite some time. It was amusing.
One of the attractions that I really wanted to see in Central Park was Strawberry Fields. This is a garden that Yoko Ono created in honour of John Lennon, who was killed in front of the Dakota Apartments across the street on December 8, 1980. It is supposed to be a quiet place of reflection, but people were generally ignoring that instruction. I took at photo of the Imagine mosaic at the centre of the garden. This was a week before the anniversary of John Lennon's death.
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| The Imagine mosaic in Strawberry Fields |
We wandered on across the Bow Bridge. This bridge is beautiful and crosses the manmade lake with the inspiring and original moniker, The Lake. We found a bench and sat by this bridge to do some people watching and relax.
There was a lot of activity in Central Park - musicians, dancers, actors, tourists - all doing their thing. It was a beautiful and peaceful outing and I recommend visiting Central Park if you are ever in New York City. It was one of the highlights of our stay.
~Angie
