Christmas In Wonderful New York

I have finally sorted out my New York photos so I can share some of the wonderful sights from our trip just before christmas. I went for 4 nights with my lovely girl and arrived home Christmas Eve. A couple of hours after landing in New York there was a blizzard and airports closed. The first night we were there we had 14'' of snow in Central Park. We stayed the first couple of nights in a hotel near Central Park and on our first night went to Times Square. Everywhere was strangely quiet with very little traffic which is extremely rare in New York. We ate in The Stardust Diner where the staff entertain you with songs from the musicals whilst you eat. The whole place had a real 1950s feel right down to the costumes the staff wore. I had an enormous alcoholic milkshake which sounds disgusting but was delicious.

We saw the Statue Of Liberty from the Staten Island ferry, my hand nearly froze to my camera when I went on deck to take some photos.

Ground Zero is an enormous area and is still a vast building site. We visited the memorial centre and saw the patchwork quilt made by schoolchildren. The little Christmas tree was outside the fire station next door and remembers the fire fighters from the station who lost their lives.

We decided to go up the Empire State Building at night as the queues were so long during the day time. The view from the top was truly breathtaking and impossible to capture in a photograph. It was bitterly cold outside the glass viewing area and very windy but such an experience. The inside of the building is wonderfully Art Deco as is much of the architecture in New York.

This was the Louis Vuitton shop decorated with what looked like colourful luggage labels.

This is the view from our hotel window of the Empire State building. We stayed in Soho on the edge of Greenwich village for our final two nights.

This was the building across the street from our hotel, I loved the Sherlock Holmes poster on the side of the enormous old brown stone building.

This was my favourite building of all, the deco Chrysler building. It seemed to be visible from so many places and looked best lit up at night.

This was the famous Christmas tree in front of The Rockefeller Centre. The ice rink was much smaller than I imagined.

This is a view of beautiful Central Park in the snow . We didn't brave the ice rink , it really was too cold but we loved the park. The sun was blinding in the snow and the sky was bright blue.

This was a busker playing wonderful christmas tunes on the sax. We sat in the park listening to him and eating hot dogs from one of the stands.

This picture is the view from our first hotel looking out over the Hudson river.

I couldn't resist a snap of this iconic image.

The Rockefeller tree.

We had an amazing night at Radio City music hall watching the Christmas spectacular featuring the famous Rockettes. The show was fantastic and reminded me of the golden age of Hollywood when rows of dancers created wonderful patterns on stage and wore extravagant costumes.

This was a view of the outside terrace at our hotel, lovely in summer I am sure !

Lots of cars including some of the yellow cabs were completely stuck in the snow. I think the blue substance was some sort of de-icer.

The illuminated signs in Times Square were a real spectacle and constantly changing. The whole area was packed with people once the roads had been cleared by the industrial sized snow ploughs.

We really did have an amazing time and have loads of happy memories. My lovely girl is desperate to go back again perhaps in the Summer. I am not sure it will happen this year but I am sure we will go again . In my next post I will share some pictures of the amazing shops and a few of my purchases. I am being strict with myself and trying not to inflict too many pictures on you all.