Our last day in NYC! We held a meeting over breakfast to review what we have not yet done that we still want to do, so those decisions would direct our last day here.

After our morning routine, we headed over to Pier 83 to take a Circle Line cruise. It went down past Hudson Yards, New Jersey, the Financial District, Governor’s Island, Ellis Island, and under the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. The boat also hovered near the Statue of Liberty to give plenty of time for photos. Seeing the crowds lining up on that island to climb the Statue made me glad we had decided not to do that – the queues were very long and they were standing in the sun, and today is the hottest day we’ve had here. We are all a little sunburnt on our arms and legs from our time on the water.

Once we were back at the Pier, we travelled back to the Upper West Side to another bookstore Abi wanted to explore: Shakespeare & Co. While there was a cafe inside the bookstore, we noticed a little diner next to it that looked authentically like one would expect an American diner to look, so decided to have lunch in there instead. The Westside Diner fed us all omelettes for lunch (such an extensive menu, and we all separately picked an omelette!), and then we explored the bookstore.

From there we went a few more blocks to return to Central Park. One place our pedicab tour yesterday didn’t get to was Belvedere Castle, so we walked through the Ramble to there, and then bought some fruit (large cups of freshly cut fruit for $5) from a cart vendor at the exit and sat and enjoyed some mango and watermelon while we people-watched. Well…..Belle people-watched, while Abi and I were on the lookout for anything suspicious seeing as many Law & Order scenes occur in The Ramble.

From there we walked back down W77th Ave to our hotel, stopping briefly at a local public school that has a market every Sunday in their grounds (Grand Bazaar NYC). It was a good excuse to explore an NYC public school, and see how another Art/Craft-type festival is done!

Back at our hotel we freshened up and headed to the East Village, another neighbourhood to explore with another bookstore Abi wanted to review. This bookstore was HUGE, with 18 miles of books over three floors! We bought a Golden Book about New York City to keep as a souvenir, and walked two blocks down to the famous Joe’s Pizza for “a slice” for dinner (one of the items the girls mentioned this morning that they still wanted was a NY slice of pizza!).

We then caught a taxi back to our hotel for the last time, and I am sitting in bed at 8.30pm writing this while the girls pack their bags while watching a Star Wars movie on the TV we haven’t had time to turn on! We have an early start in the morning to get to the airport for our flight to LA, but have all agreed it is really exciting to be in bed so early after so many long and busy days 🙂