Day 9: New York: Metropolitan and MOMA, Lincon Center
Last night before going to bed we were looking at the weather forecast and we saw that for today the day was forecast to be quite cloudy, even with rainy moments. After verifying that indeed the day has dawned quite gray, we decided to dedicate this day to the Metropolitan and MOMA museums, two of the best known museums and two essentials in the city. Apart from being free MoMA in Friday afternoon, something that we can take advantage of and that you can take into account if you do not want to pay the 25 dollars it costs per person (donations are not valid here.
Since the day was quite cloudy, we would say the worst since we started the trip to New York in 11 days, we take a break and leave the Holiday Inn Times Square when it is 8:30, going straight to Dean & DeLuca for breakfast and charge energy for today, although not with many visits, we hope it is the most complete.
After breakfast, a couple of pastries plus a medium and an American cappuccino and 1 water for 17 dollars and when it is about 9:15 in the morning and we take the subway to get closer to the Waldorf Astoria New York, one of the most famous hotels where, as we have read, you have to enter to enjoy its impressive hall.
Waldorf Astoria
Paying attention to the recommendations we enter and we find a hotel that certainly can say that it is beautiful, but that we also believe in the same way, it is worth visiting only if you are in the area, but expressly moving here, we believe that it does not deserve worth it, unless you take it as a simple anecdote for saying that you have entered one of the most famous hotels in New York and the world.
Since we are in this area we approach the St. Bartholomew's Church that stands out among the huge skyscrapers next to it and from where we return to the subway to go to the Metropolitan which is the visit we have as icing on the cake of the morning of today.
Contrasts in New York
Must see places in New York
After our experience on this trip to New York during Holy Week we consider that there is nothing else essential in New York Than walk through its streets. If we had to keep some of the trip, it really would be with that and that is that in the true essence of the city are its streets and especially in the neighborhoods. See how they change from one to another and realize how that line not noticeable, which turns out to be a street, means being in one area or another means belong to one culture or another. We were left with an idea, that for them it was experience, that Enric and Cèlia de Quaderns de Bitàcola told us: "One of the best ways to see this diversity is choose Broadway Street and complete it, so you can see perfectly how the neighborhoods change from one street to another.
Although if we have to say an essential place in New York, which really refers to a visit itself, we probably stay with the Natural History Museum, one of the New York museums Those who are well worth spending a full day and if you don't have it, at the very least, make sure you spend a few hours. We assure you that you will not regret it.
We arrive at the Metropolitan in 3 metro stops, staying on 77th Street, which is the closest and from there and in a few minutes we stand in front of another of the city museums more known and also more visited.
Metropolitan
We enter with the CityPASS, and there we are going to discover some of its most important rooms, among which are the Egyptian and Roman, not forgetting the one dedicated to Oceania that has real wonders.
MET input
What to see in the Metropolitan
As we mentioned before the price to the MET is 25 dollars, although if you have the CityPASS the entrance is free.
If you do not have this card you can book this ticket without queues in advance.
You must have about 3-4 hours to see the most important rooms without stopping a lot, since if we wanted to see them all, we would probably need many more hours.
With more than 6 million annual visits the MET is one of the ten most visited museums in the world, so you can already imagine the fame and quality that you can find among its walls.
Metropolitan
The most interesting rooms are the one dedicated to Roman and Egyptian culture, as well as the paintings on the second floor, which without a doubt you can not miss.
MET Egyptian art
One of the favorite exhibits of visitors, apart from being a worldwide recognized collection with more than 36,000 works exhibited in 40 rooms, the Temple of Dendur being the most impressive for many. This temple was dismantled stone by stone so that it was not destroyed by the flooding of the Aswan Dam. In 1965 the Egyptian government donated it to the United States, which installed it in one of the Metropolitan halls. Don't miss the incredible views of Central Park from the living room.
Dendur Temple Metropolitan
Pre-Columbian art, Oceania art, African art MET
The exhibitions and masks of Central American peoples stand out. For us some essential rooms.
After these rooms we find the area dedicated to Oceania, for us another one of the most spectacular and finally the rooms dedicated entirely to African art.
African art MET
MET European art
A large area of the second floor is dedicated solely to European art. Here we can find works by El Greco, Vermeer, Pollock or Van Gogh. Apart from that we can also enjoy complete rooms dedicated to Monet.
MET room
It's almost 1 noon when we end our visit to the Metropolitan, determined to do it in the best way possible, on the fifth floor, on its terrace. Something we cannot do is that when we approach we see that it is only open from May to October, so we have another reason to return to New York.
After a visit that we loved, we go back to 5 Avenue looking for a subway station that will bring us to what will be the second visit of the day, another of the New York museums, the MOMA. But before, how could it be otherwise, and being the time it is time to look for a place to eat and being where we are, we can not avoid it: the chosen one is the clandestine hamburger that is inside the Hotel Le Mèridien, one of the best New York burgers and one of the ones we didn't want to leave without trying.
We arrived guiding us through the CityMaps2Go to Le Mèridien and as soon as we entered, right at the reception on the left we already see the red curtain we had read and behind which is Burger Joint, the burger shop of Le Mèridien.
Access to Burger Joint at the Le Mèridien hotel
The place is quite small and there is usually a lot of queue, so it is best to start thinking about what we are going to ask before arriving at the counter. For this we will have help. Right on the tail you will see that there is a kind of bookcase in which there are papers with pen that you can fill out by directly making the order, marking with an X everything you want and putting your name. Then once you arrive at the counter you only have to show it to the waiters, they charge you and then they call you by name giving you what you have requested.
As in the rest of the famous places to which we have gone, we certainly recommend that the best thing is that when you see a free table you take it and one of the group will ask, since if you are all going to ask, it is probably more difficult to take table.
Burger Joint
We ordered a cheeseburger plus a double cheeseburger, beer, coke and two portions of potatoes for $ 43. The truth is that they are very good, maybe a little expensive to be hamburgers but counting the place that it is and the famous thing has been done, in the end we have to say that we believe that compared to other sites, it has not been so exaggerated.
Eating at Burger Joint, the burger shop in Le Mèridien
We leave when it is 2:15 in the afternoon, surprising us as the day has opened, now having a totally clear sky that encourages us to take a walk around the area and thus take advantage of lowering the hamburger a little, finding ourselves by chance with a of the famous Love sculptures, which we had not yet seen and that we have to say, we were pleased to meet in the city.
LOVE New York
From here seeing that we still have a while until four, which is the time when you can enter the MoMA for free (on Fridays from 4:00 to 8:00 in the afternoon), we sit in a restaurant -bar to take a couple of express for nine dollars. The truth is that as you can see the coffee is not especially cheap and less today that it has been only an espresso and not an American as we usually drink since we arrived in the city.
A good option if you visit MoMA on another day of the week is to book this visit with audioguide in Spanish.
Book the best rated Spanish tours and excursions in New York by travelers
- New York contrasts
- Offer Contrast Tour + Mass Góspel
- New York Helicopter Tour
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The three minutes pass when we decide to get back on track seeing that the weather has been so good again, going around the area and approaching the MoMA by chance and luck! And it is that at 3:15 in the afternoon there is a long queue to enter at 4:00 for free, so we decided that it is best to get in it and thus be able to enter soon and make the visit in a couple hours.
Moma
After our experience, especially if you come on a Friday, that the entrance is free from 4:00 to 8:00 in the afternoon, we recommend you to be early, since afterwards it is quite tedious to enter, since queues form endless in both the cloakroom and to enter the museum itself. We believe that it is best to come a little earlier, make a more reasonable queue and thus be able to visit in a couple of hours or so. Of course, whenever you come to see the most "relevant" or famous works, since if you are very interested in the museum, you will surely need more than one day to enjoy it.
In our case, the most interesting exhibition is the third and fourth floor, where are the paintings by Dalí, Picasso, Monet ... so we go through the rest of the plants in a slightly fleeting way, stopping only in front of the most known.
MoMA room. Van Gogh Starry Night
And although we cannot avoid spending more time in front of works such as Starry Night of Van Gogh, The Misses of Avignon de Picasso, The Persistence of Dalí's Memory or Dutch Interior of Miró, after more than an hour in these rooms, we return to Go down to visit the first floors where we find works by Piet Mondrian, Andy Warhol or Jackson Pollock, among many others.
It's a little after six in the afternoon when we finish the visit to the second of the museums we visited today, visiting the famous MoMa store and then enter Fifth Avenue, passing through the stores where we spent the first days, such as the well-known Apple store and where we stop to admire the windows of many of them.
Apple Store
Since we are in this area we approach the famous Serendipity restaurant 3, famous for the movie. But we have to say that when seeing the entrance this He throws us back a little and it really seems like a position of those of all a hundred. And as we also see a queue of about 10 people and the opinions we have read are not too encouraging, we decided to take a photo of rigor and leave this culinary visit for the next time we come to New York.
Serendipity Restaurant 3
After looking at what alternatives we have, we decided in the end to return to the Japanese where we were having dinner on the day of the helicopter tour of New York, knowing that we will probably enjoy it much more than Serendipity 3.
To return to the Times Square area where we are staying, we take the red metro line and just when we are already riding we realize that following the same line we can reach Lincon Center, one of the areas of New York that we have left to know that It houses The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera or the New York Philharmonic Orchestra among many others.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. Seeing what time it is and without being very hungry, we decided that today is the time to do it, so said and done, we are going there.
It does not take more than 20 minutes to go out to the streets of New York in an area hitherto unknown to us, but that already hooks us first and it is that at this time of the afternoon it has already got dark and it appears before us with the best galas, lit and at the most perfect time: the time at which the functions begin. It is one of the best stops on a route through New York at night.
Lincon Center
Lincon Center
After a walk around the area we take the subway again, just as it starts to sparkle, reaching Times Square in less than 15 minutes, where we decided to go to dinner directly for the weather and where we enjoyed an incredible assortment of rolls and niguiris in the Inakaya restaurant, which are a great farewell to what is our penultimate day in New York.
Japanese cuisine in New York
It's almost 10 at night when we re-enter the Holiday Inn Times Square, saying goodbye to the day with the usual image of the Empire State Building.
Saying goodbye to the Empire State
More practical information to prepare your trip to New York
- 10 things to book before traveling to New York
- The 10 best tours and excursions in New York
- 100 things to see and do in New York
- New York guide step by step
- The 10 best museums in New York
- The best travel insurance for New York
- The best viewpoints in New York
- What to see in New York by neighborhood
- The 10 best free things in New York
- 20 essential places to visit in New York
- 10 essential tips for traveling to New York
Day 10: New York: Brunch at 230 Fifth, Roosevelt Island - Broadway play: Aladdin
