NEW YORK HONEYMOON: DAY 3

We woke up to snow!!! I think if you go to New York in the Winter it would be such a disappointment not to get some snow so we were very happy to wake up to a light dusting, with the forecast predicting quite heavy downfalls for the rest of the day. Our plan was to walk down to Lower Manhattan, past the Flat Iron, grabbing brunch on the way to go and see Ground Zero, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. We had thought about going on a boat trip from down that way too, but I'm glad we didn't in the end because we wouldn't have seen very much at all.

The walk from our hotel to the Ground Zero area is about 4 miles so we set off around 8am ish and made our way, meandering as we went, to Jack's Wife Freda, a lovely, very friendly little all-day bistro near Bleecker St. We'd been recommended this place by a friend (and I'd heard of it before but I can't think where - Instagram maybs?) and, luckily, it was in the West Village area where the Friends' building and Carrie's stoop are located so we had to go! The service here was honestly amazing, out waitress was super-friendly and it was the perfect place to get some food and a coffee before heading back out into the (now really quite heavy) snow. If you're ever around this area, the 'Madame Freda' - "Pressed sandwich with duck prosciutto, cheddar bechamel, gruyere and a sunny side up egg" - is AMAZING!

So, after brunch we wondered around the West Village which turned out to be one of my favourite places we visited - it had such a lovely feeling to it, much lower-rise buildings and quite a 'cosy' feeling - although I do think this was helped by the fact it was snowing which made everything more magical (until we decided to walk back in it too, kind of lost the charm at that point).

As you can imagine, Nick was THRILLED to see these sights - the Friends building and Carrie's stoop (like you needed me to tell you!) but it was a lovely place to walk around. Having found these highly important tourist destinations, we carried on heading further south for Lower Manhattan. The snow by this point was really coming down and it was freeeeezing and I'm not sure whether it was this combined with where we were heading, or just the thought of our destination on our minds, but we were both quite happy with not talking much and just observing the surroundings as we headed towards Ground Zero. I'm not sure about you, but I've heard many people share their experiences of what it's like when you get there but, honestly, it was actually much more difficult (I'm not sure this is the right word but I'm not sure what is) than I imagined. What they've done there is beautiful, the waterfalls feel like the perfect tribute to what was such an incredibly terrible tragedy, the sheer size of each of them is incredible and almost unbelievable to imagine what once stood there. It's true what they say that almost everyone will be able to remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of the Twin Towers, I certainly can and I was but a small year 7 in her English class somewhere in Lincolnshire, so to actually have been stood there where it happened really was incredible in a way I can't describe, not incredible to be stood there because I and everyone else would rather not have had it turned into a tourist destination for the reasons it has, but just an incredible thing to be there after seeing it and hearing about it and watching it for so many years.

If you ever do visit Ground Zero I'd highly recommend going into the museum. We weren't planning to and I will tell you one of the main reasons we did was because we were so very very cold, but I am so glad we did. It is breathtaking and heart-breaking and just an absolute must-do if you can. I have never been in a museum or gallery or maybe even a library where everyone has been so quiet and respectful - to see the actual foundations of the buildings as you walk around the museum is amazing. We were inside for a good couple of hours and once we felt ready we decided to move on to explore some more of the area.

We headed further south down towards the river and Brooklyn Bridge and as you can see the snow was really heavy now - we couldn't even see to the other side of the bridge. We spent a little bit of time wondering around this area before deciding to make our way back up to the hotel on foot, so another 4 miles in the heavy snow. I'm not going to lie and say that I particularly enjoyed the walk back all that much haha, it was fun but by the time we got back my feet and my legs and my hips were about to fall off and I was in desperate need of a strong drink! It was about 5ish by the time we reached the hotel so we chilled out for a bit, trying to decide where to go for dinner but kind of dreading the thought of going outside in the cold again having returned damp to the core and freezing cold! We ended up having an amazing evening in the hotel bar/restaurant, we were only going to go for one drink before venturing out to find somewhere to eat, but it was so cosy and they had a great drinks menu so, 5 (or 6) drinks and a much needed burger later we were, to say the least, pretty merry!