Day 20 - Thursday 6th May - NYC

This morning we got up early and headed down to the south tip of Manhattan Island, via the subway, to Battery Park. Here we lined up to pick up our tickets for our trip out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

So, off we headed on the 9am boat out to Liberty Island. Once there we found lockers to store our bag, as we were only able to bring our camera with us, as we were climbing all the way up the inside of Lady Liberty to her crown. The stairwell starts like a normal stair well that’s inside a building, but then once your up into the statue body, it’s a spiral staircase that’s very tight and steep.

Somehow, we had managed to be the third and forth people up the statue for the day! They only have a certain number of people going up every half hour, and as there is limited room at the crown viewing, they have only a few people going up every 10 minutes. The view was great, and we could touch all the copper that makes up the definition of her hair.

Heading back down, we stopped at the different viewing levels and also the museum. After a walk around the island, we headed to the boat to go over to Ellis Island.

Once on Ellis Island, we spent about 1.5-2hrs looking around at the displays. For those that don’t know, this was basically for the most part an Immigration island. Most people who immigrated here from other counties via boat had their first steps on American soil at Ellis Island.

Once we returned to Manhattan, we took a walk up Broadway to Wall Street, then onto the World Trade Centre site. There is construction going on here for new buildings and memorial areas.

Back on the Subway, and to our hotel for a rest and to get ready for dinner.

Tonight we headed over to Rockefeller Centre. We brought tickets to go up to The Top Of the Rock. And then headed to have some dinner in the middle of the Centre right where in winter they have the ice skating rink.

After dinner we headed up to Top of the Rock. We timed it right so that we got up just before sunset and were able to see the city in daylight, twighlight and in the dark. The view was great, we could see central park and took some great shots of the Empire State Building.