Last November 2015, my son and I along with another friend and her son visited New York City for what we considered a long weekend; Wednesday to Sunday. During our stay we visited numerous tourist attractions including Central Park. Being a NYC visitor newbie, I wasn’t sure what to expect to see in the Park. As parks go in the Midwest, my thought was this was just a gigantic grassy area full of kids running freely and parents sitting on park benches drinking their Starbucks.
OK, so there were kids running freely while laughing and playing and there were moms socializing while drinking their Starbucks, but this park was so much more! Central Park in New York City is a wonderful Hidden Gem.
We traveled to Central Park via the uptown subway departing at the Museum of Nature History then making our way across the street.
We were all excited to enter the park and enjoy the scenery.
It was vast and full of lust colorful trees; there were numerous walkers, an occasional runner, lots of bike riders and the busy dog walkers. I loved the sound of children playing nearby and clip clop of passing horse carriages. The late autumn air was blowing through the park and made our morning that more memorable. I truly was overwhelmed; this was not just a park, it is a city within this city.
We spend the better part of the day in Central Park strolling through the winding paths. We strolled past
- The Mall and Literary Walk
- The Loeb Boathouse
- The Bethesda Fountain where a group of thespians were filming
- The Bethesda Terrace arcade created in the 1860’s to view the Minton Tile Ceiling
- The Gapstow Bridge where another short film was in production
- The Lake
- And the too many to count rock formations the boys loved to climb and pretend to be King of the Mountain.
As we continued our journey through the park, I needed to open my maps app on my phone just to know where we were and where we were headed.
We continued to work our way south through the park stopping at La Pain Quotidian café for a quick (and overly priced) lunch. Following lunch, we continued our walk passing by the Central Park Zoo. Due to time constraints, we didn’t visit the zoo, other than walking by the outdoor seal exhibit to watch the seals put on a show for all us spectators. Our visit to the park lasted about five hours and we all felt like we barely experienced all the park had to offer. I will say that I can totally understand the need for this great vast green space sitting smack dab in the middle of the skyscraper and concrete jungle. It was a great way to regroup and allow the boys to run off some energy, slow our tourist minds and simply just enjoy all this great city has to offer.
