We headed down Manhattan to get the ferry over to Liberty Island this morning, a trip which has to be a must-do for any visit to New York. It was a cold start though and the wind was really whipping across the river as we made our way over on the boat. And even once over on Liberty Island it was still very windy.
And we got our first proper look at the Statue of Liberty.
There was quite a lot of construction work going on at the site so some of the normal views had barriers in the way. I think it was for a new visitors centre.
The entrance to the statue herself is through the museum, which has lots of interesting artifacts there on the history of the construction of the statue and how it has changed over the years. This included the original torch, which was lit and you could even go onto the viewing platform that surrounded it. Must have caused massive vertigo.
There was also the full size model of the face. This isn’t actually quite as large as we were expecting.
We walked around the viewing areas outside as we didn’t get a ticket for the top. They were already sold out for the day when we got there, but even if not I’m not sure we would have gone up. The walk up the spiral staircases looks somewhat terrifying.
As we went out we were really blown about and Rosemary got somewhat battered by the wind.
After our tour of the museum we got some lunch in the cafe (which was actually very nice) and during that time the weather improved greatly and we had clear blue skies and very little wind. We’d also picked up a classic Statue of Liberty souvenir, which we had to get into some photos.
The ferry from Liberty Island takes you to Ellis Island, which is where vast numbers of immigrants to the US arrived and the halls there would process them.
The ferry does give some fantastic views of the Downtown area, including Freedom Tower which we had been to 2 days ago.
The main hall on Ellis Island is an amazing building and is part of the National Parks, as is Liberty Island.
The building is an extremely good museum, with lots of history but told from the perspective of the individual people arriving to America.
Our trip finished with getting the ferry back to Battery Park and it was already nearing sunset, and we had put in a lot of steps already during the day. So we headed to a nearby Subway station to go back to the hotel and have some dinner near there.
But we did spot the building where the Men in Black have their headquarters. But we couldn’t get access….
We had dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant not far from our hotel, with pizza and pasta for dinner.
Rosemarys Travels 