The Central Park Fairytale

New York, New York, (so good they named it twice!); the most famous city on Earth, home to the world, epicentre of the American dream.  If anything happens, it happens here first in this cosmopolitan, metropolitan conurbation, where six-lane highways snake as living serpents through a dense high-rise of 17 million, destination Manhattan Island.  These are brash, macho, uncompromising streets, upon which many of the most iconic moments have occurred on the big screen, leaving an oddly familiar backdrop of yellow taxis and subway smoke drifting up from the sidewalks and into the misty morning air.

At the very core of Manhattan sits the city's most famous green space, if ever the terms "lungs of the city" applied anywhere, Central Park.  For us, unceremoniously unloaded at our Downtown hotel the previous night following an unprecedented wait at US Immigration, it's an obvious first stop, a place to refresh and recharge.  What is immediately striking is the peace of the park, for at the very heart of one of the planet's biggest cities sits a haven of plants and birds, with fresh spring flowers still very much in bloom.  We take the steps up to Belvedere Tower, built as a lookout in 1869, and now home to the New York Meteorological Observatory.  For a lookout tower, it's a romantically beautiful structure, and the views of the surrounding park and the city beyond are unbeatable.

Central Park

Belvedere Tower

Our early visit to Central Park is not entirely accidental.  From the tower, I spot a wooden jetty projecting out into a small body of water called Turtle Pond.  We find it and stay a while to take in the view, and whilst Lizzie is lining up the perfect shot on her camera, I fumble around in my pocket for the ring.  The result is a combination of bemusement, sniffles and (I hope) delight.  She said yes, anyway!  Arm-in-arm and newly-engaged, we stroll from here to the Shakespeare Garden, again lovely with the tulips and newly-unfurled ferns, through the winding woodland paths known as The Ramble, around The Lake and over Bow Bridge, down The Mall and through The Dairy, past The Pond and out into 59th Street.  There's a persistent drizzle at this point which is slowly soaking us, but we're on cloud nine, and Central Park has delivered the perfect introduction to the city.

She said yes, and I'm a happy man!

The Shakespeare Garden

Following a special lunch at the Park Lane Hotel, which sits three doors up from the very famous Plaza and has a restaurant overlooking the park and the horse-and-carriages that ply the street in front, we return to the gates of the park, to pay a visit to Central Park Zoo.  It's not the biggest zoo in the world, but it's certainly one of the most well-kept, with some astonishing habitats for the animals in their care.  Red pandas (you don't often see these active,) snow leopards and grizzly bears are undoubted highlights, as are the characterful and playful sea lions, stealing the show in the centre of the zoo.  A quiet day for a visit - being a rainy, out-of-season, Wednesday - but this really works in our favour, and there are moments where we appear to have the whole place to ourselves - just the way I like it.

Red panda

Snow leopard

The rain is actually setting in by the time we're finished and, still feeling a touch of jet-lag, we slowly head back to our lodgings, making an obvious stop off at the NHL store on nearby 6th Avenue, where there are plenty of jerseys from which to choose, yet only one real choice given our location for the next week - a vintage style New York Rangers jersey, bringing the dollars out for the first time.  There's more fun to be had in store, of course, and who wouldn't take the chance to lift hockey's premier trophy, the Stanley Cup?  It also sets us up nicely for the evening's play-off clash - this one is Nashville versus St Louis - watched on TV from the comfort of bed and ending what has been - in more ways than one - a very unique, especially memorable, fairytale day.

A true hockey champion