New York

Comment - 1st day: New York

An unforgettable tour, complete, with indescribable natural beauty, metropolis, amusement parks and the Caribbean Sea. I recommend renting a car in the parks to enjoy these places in complete freedom and calm, which with an organized tour would be done too quickly. Driving in the States (at least in these States), is really easy, the traffic is light, the roads perfect and enormous. The automatic transmission completes the relaxed driving. As for eating, the choice is endless and the prices are relatively low. The Orlando parks, except for Sea World, disappointed me a bit, but this is a strictly personal assessment. The climate was very humid and very hot, the parks super crowded, in the Magic Kingdom for some attractions an hour of queue was necessary, and it wasn't high season. Many attractions are similar to Gardaland, obviously more "go big".

Some attractions at Epcot are nice, others seemed banal to me, and in any case it's necessary to know English. This was my honeymoon, and I will never forget it!

New York - Day 1

We land at Kennedy in the early afternoon and are welcomed by the assistant from "Caleidoscopio", for the collective transfer, well paid for, to our hotel. This is the last time I buy a collective transfer; at that price I could have paid for a nice taxi, without having to wait almost an hour for all the other passengers. Once settled at the Jolly Madison, very expensive and rather ugly, with a tiny little room a bit old, its only advantage being the location, right in front of the Empire State Building, we decide to go for a first approach to the city. So we walk towards Times Square; it's here that you start to see the real New York, made of skyscrapers, immense streets, lights and rivers of people. We have dinner in a kind of "Ciao", where the peculiarity is that everything you take is weighed at the same price, and you pay based on the weight.

We stuffed ourselves for 12 dollars for two. The beauty of N.Y. is that you can choose to eat for 5 dollars or 200 dollars.

New York - 2nd day

This morning we have an appointment with a guide for a short orientation tour of the whole city; it was worth it, because in a short time they manage to see many things. It's very cold and there's an icy wind from the sea. First stop at the Rockefeller Center on 5th street; right next door the famous Tiffany; it's on this street that the world's highest concentration of luxurious shops is found. We then cross all of Manhattan passing through Central Park, with the houses of the rich, then Little Italy, China Town, to arrive at the southernmost tip, at Battery Park, where you enjoy a beautiful view of the bay and the Statue of Liberty. The tour then ends at Pier 17 (South Street Seaport), the most famous pier in the city; a real sight, with an exciting 360° view: the Brooklyn Bridge and a sailing ship towards the sea, and the shining skyscrapers towards the city.

So we start wandering around on our own and take the opportunity for a super cheap (free) little cruise in the N.Y. bay, with the commuters' ferry that from Manhattan goes to Staten Island. The ferry passes alongside Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and offers an unforgettable view of all of Manhattan, which from the sea is impressive. The ride lasts about an hour (round trip), it's certainly not the luxurious dinner cruise in the bay, but given the price... We continue with a walk on Wall Street, then return to the Hotel by subway. For the evening, we choose a small restaurant with table service, and we don't eat badly at all, even though on a single plate, pasta is served (decent), and meat with a side dish (excellent). We spend about thirty dollars in total for two.

New York - 3rd day

A splendid day with a blue sky, a rarity I think; yesterday's cold is a distant memory, and a shirt is more than enough to get around. So we take the opportunity to go up the Empire. The view is impressive, unique in the world I'd say. You can see the whole boundless city and the whole bay, and we recognize the places seen the day before. The best view is looking towards the harbor, where the tallest skyscrapers rise, among them the twin towers. Once down, we return to the Rockefeller Center for a more thorough visit; a real city within the city with underground tunnels where there are shops and restaurants, and a series of skyscrapers all the same, very close to each other, that almost don't let the sunlight filter through. We then visit the Cathedral, very European and very beautiful, although modern.

The strange thing is that back home a church, on the outside, seems imposing, while here it's one of the lowest buildings in the city. Last stop a walk in Central Park, the true lung of the city, with its little lakes, the flowers, the squirrels; you almost no longer hear the noise of the metropolis. In the evening we have dinner in one of those "by weight" places, but we end up in one run by Vietnamese, where we can't eat anything and are forced to throw away everything we took. So we find ourselves eating a squalid pizza in New York's central station, and my thought is: how come, with all that I've spent I'm here eating a pizza, cold, greasy and standing up; this happens too!!! There would be many other things to see in N.Y., museums, neighborhoods, shops, but time is short, and tomorrow we leave again...