New York, New York!!!

Visited NY earlier this month with the family. I've visited NY 3 or 4 times previously, but this was the first time with the family, so that made this trip special. Went with Amtrak (good choice for NY!) Also bought NY City Passes along with the train tickets. This gave us access to a bunch of popular sites in the Big Apple.

Had a great trip! There's soooo much to see in New York and we did a fair bit of the 'usual suspects'! Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park, Natural History Museum and the Sight-seeing boat cruise around the island of Manhattan! The cruise gives you a unique perspective of Manhattan and I do strongly recommend it. Our Tour Guide was excellent and he laced his narrative with humor at the right moments. Really liked his contribution. Wish i knew his name...

We chose to do the viewing deck of the Empire State Bldg at midnight to see the city lights. Spectacular views, but our time on the deck was cut short due to lightening ;-(

Central Park was nice. We only saw a tiny bit of it 'cos we'd spent the most of that morning at the Natural History museum and planetarium.

Other highlights were Times Square (which is now partially pedestrianized) and sampling various restaurants in the city. We stayed the night at the Grand Hyatt on 42nd and Park Ave! Nice hotel (though rather busy) Had a couple of rooms on the 23rd floor with a direct view of the Chrsyler building right next door!!!

All in all, New York was fun - a bit too crowded (not surprisingly) and infrastructure that seems to be groaning under the pressure of overuse! An exciting city I plan to visit more often in the future (but best served up in 'small doses').

I do love New York, but like i said to the family, 'the peace and tranquility of Falls Church is priceless'!