Big Apple

We had a bit of a rough start in NYC. It turned out that we'd booked the 'Fawlty Towers' hotel of Manhattan! They'd muddled up our reservation completely, so when we arrived by public transport from JFK airport after 15 hours traveling we found out that they didn't have a room for us at all that night! We ended up with the option of being on the street or paying $300 for a room in another hotel downtown, so we flagged a yellow taxi and put our bags down at the newly opened posh Ace Hotel's....er.... bunk-bed room. It wasn't all bad though as after a few more bunglings on behalf of our first hotel they eventually moved us into their deluxe room and we paid only for one night's stay out of three.



Lucky for us, Ace Hotel was close to some iconic New York sights such as the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building. We joined the hefty queue and were rewarded by amazing panoramas of Manhattan.



South panorama 'downtown' from Empire State Building



Chrysler building



5th Avenue



Dave



And a curious pigeon.

Down on street level, we wandered around Times Square and the Theatre District to get the feeling of being in this famous city. It's strange because many of the sights are so familiar as they are in popular culture and well-known.





NYPD were out in force, due to an open air premiere of the 'Billy Elliot' musical.