When travelling back from Florida where I was staying at the Hippocrates Health Institute (see my food blog ) my plane was delayed and they gave me a hotel and a flight out the following evening. Hip hip hooray! I'd never been to New York and there I was with a free day in a new city. Oh the joys of googling and planning the precious few hours. I opted for the Guggenheim museum Art Gallery (Kandinsky and Frank Lloyd Wright, Yay!), a walk in Central Park, a wander along Maddison avenue, a Korean vegan lunch, a look up at the cloud-wreathed Empire State Building, the shortest ever Borders moment and back on the train back to the airport, happy, content, nourished, full of culture...
(and you can click on the photos to enlarge them)
Part of me wanted to concentrate on the city things as, after all, a park is a park. But that part of my magical day was, er, magically magical, unexpectedly so.
Of course! walking in New York's lungs after a plane travel and tower-block hotel experience. Colour, beautiful plant forms, new vistas. This is some park. It's well cared-for and must add to much to the quality of life of Manhattan Islanders, such as these dog-walkers:
And though a sunny day is always nice, I loved the drizzly day as much as the spring green leaves did, misty, enchanting. Even the umbrellas were treats adding to the drama.
There's something special about the tamed wildness of parks, plants gathered from the four corners of the earth and flourishing together - tamed but still wild, really. Like us actually, tamed and civilised yes, but still our real selves are part of nature. Whether you would want to sketch this curve of a Japanese-type branch or climb up the tree and sit in it it draws you in.
Looking back, in memory as in the enticing view under a bridge below,as I was leaving, the experience is framed in the buildings around, the frame for an amazing living art piece of greenery.
Nature gave so much, as it always does, to the day, even in the middle of an enormous city of buildings that touch the sky, including the Empire State Building:
If reminder is needed, my day in New York is a reminder of how fundamental nature, and art, and architecture - all of them together really - are to life.
Never mind smell the coffee, smell the fresh air and the blossoms in the park.
.......and the Korean vegetarian lunch? - my other blog is my foodie one and I might well post about that delightful meal there.
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