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Where to eat the best steak in New York? What is the most beautiful viewpoint? Is Bryant Park worth visiting? You can learn this and much more in the following report from our last day in New York. I hope this will inspire you to travel to the United States. Enjoy reading!

Sightseeing route

Zucker’s & Magnolia Bakery

Our New York day, like the previous one, we began with a quick visit to Zucker’s, where we ate a filling breakfast in the form of richly filled bagels. Then, encouraged by the scenes from the iconic “Sex in the Big City”, following in the footsteps of Carrie and her friend Miranda, we went to the famous New York patisserie – Magnolia Bakery. As you can easily guess, this place offers a variety of American pastries, and its visitors are captivated by the stylish vintage decor and friendly service.

We only lacked tables where we could eat New York cheesecakes (temptingly named Red Velvet and Vanilla Bean, for $8 a piece), but we easily dealt with this problem by finding free seats at the luxurious Lotte New York Palace. The hotel garden turned out to be a bull’s eye, because not only we could drink coffee in peace and enjoy our desserts, but we could also admire the cathedral of St. Patrick’s Day at the same time. The perfect place for a casual brunch in a big city 😉

Central Park

After a moment of rest and a delicious dessert, we decided for the last time to take a walk along the picturesque Central Park paths. Unfortunately, also on this day the weather was not good, but it did not bother us at all. After all, how often do we have the opportunity to walk around the green lungs of the Big Apple? 😉 Due to the early time and weather conditions, we passed relatively few tourists along the way, mainly jogging residents and school trips going to nearby playgrounds. We have to admit that we regretfully left this place, but before us was still the most important attraction of the day – Top of The Rock. Excited by this thought, we said goodbye to Central Park and set off further towards the highest building of the Rockefeller Center – GE Building.

Top of The Rock

To avoid giant queues, to get to Top of The Rock, one of the best viewing terraces in the whole city, we bought tickets (for a specific day and time) before arriving in NYC via the official website. Although the price ($38 per person) for reaching the top of the 70-story Rockefeller Center building seemed absurd to us, encouraged by the positive reviews of other visitors, we decided to see for ourselves what all the hype is about. Unfortunately, bad luck caused that on the day of our visit the weather grew worse every hour (at some point Manhattan was already covered with thick fog) and our hopes that we will be able to see the view from the top like a New York postcard come to nothing. The building staff did not leave us any illusions, as they asked us at every step in a surprised tone whether we really want to go upstairs because “visibility is really poor”. As it was our last day in the city and rebooking the ticket was out of the question, we had no choice but to agree. Together with a couple of other lonely tourists we went to the super-fast elevator (which stylist reminded us of a space vehicle) and drove to the top of the 70-story building.

New York in the fog

After reaching a three-story terrace surrounded by a glass wall, it turned out that the visibility of the day is not the best (not to say bad), but not as hopeless as we imagined, but the New York immortalized in fog to this day beautifully decorates our wall in the living room 😉 Well, you can’t always have everything, and at least we have a good excuse to go back here someday 😉 And we also encourage you to visit this place. Just check the weather forecast beforehand 😉

Bryant Park

After a visit to the roof of Manhattan, we went to another green alley in the city, which we immediately liked, namely Bryant Park, and then to the New York Public Library located next to it. Stretched between Fifth and Sixth Avenue and 40th and 42nd Street, once neglected Bryant Park is now one of New York’s favorite leisure spots. And it doesn’t surprise us at all! Take a stroll around this park and you will immediately notice its unusual charm. The park hosts many interesting activities and events (more information can be found on the official website), and most importantly (at least for us) there are a number of booths with take-out food, and for the more demanding – also an atmospheric restaurant-cafe. It’s definitely worth joining here, if only to relax during the break between intensive sightseeing.

New York Public Library

While in Bryant Park, we also decided to visit the nineteenth-century edifice of the New York Public Library (one of the largest in the world) and wander a bit between its shelves. Unfortunately, it turned out that only a small part of the library was available to visitors, but fortunately we were able to see its most beautiful room – a reading room, several stories high. We have to admit that it made quite a big impression on us and we were a bit envious of the inhabitants that they can use such an impressive place every day.

Royal 35 Steakhouse

Of course, we wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t try New York’s world famous steaks while in New York. Therefore, another (and last) place we went that day was an elegant restaurant with the eloquent name Royal 35 Steakhouse. This place prides itself on serving high-quality (USDA Prime certified) beef aged for about 30-35 days.

Of course, as it usually happens in such places, all the waiters greeted us in turn from the threshold with a glued smile on their faces. Unfortunately, as it was still relatively early (as for dinner) time, we were the only customers and all attention was focused only on us. Well, having no other choice, we took a randomly chosen table and ordered what we came for – a piece of roast beef (Prime New York Strip Steak) with our favorite (medium-rare) degree of cooking.

To the juicy steak we got equally gigantic baked potato, which unfortunately we were unable to eat (thus causing panic among the staff, which on this basis wrongly concluded that something is wrong with the dish). Although for the whole we paid a truly fabulous sum (about $200), we must admit that we liked everything very much, and the meat melted in the mouth. Add to this a glass of your favorite red wine and a recipe for a delicious New York dinner is ready 😉 For connoisseurs of perfectly done steaks, a must!

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