Tuesday 3rd
September – Thursday 12th September 2019
Bridge Street was moved first thing on the morning of 3rd
into the poly-tunnel. A delicate manoeuvre, but at least we saw her into the
dock before we left. All the removable items from the roof were put inside the
boat, Harvey was picked up at 10am and we were picked up by taxi at 13:30.
We both enjoyed the train journey from Lichfield to London Euston, but
then had an endless tube journey to Heathrow where we caught a shuttle bus to
our hotel. The tube had many stops and was hot, muggy and crowded.
The following day, we flew out of Heathrow at 11am bound for
Washington D.C., arriving at just after 2pm, local time. There are many horror
stories of American Immigration, but, although we queued for a long time, we
passed through quickly without any difficulties.
Once the tour group was assembled, we had a 1½ hour coach journey into
Washington itself and the hotel. It was becoming dark when we were settling in,
so we called into a nearby supermarket for beer and wine and had a take-away
burger for dinner. Everything in Washington, indeed both the US and Canada, we
found to be horrendously expensive.
The morning of the first day
was taken up with a guided coach tour of Washington followed by a free
afternoon. All the tourist sites are reasonably close to each other and located
around the periphery of the Mall. The coach tour, with a very knowledgeable
guide, included visits to the White House, Capitol Hill, the Lincoln Memorial
and the War Memorials of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, where there were a
number of visiting veteran groups.
Washington was designed by a Frenchman and completed, as a capital
city, in 1800. It is a clean city with lots of wide open spaces. The
architecture of all the buildings around the Mall are very grand and purposely
resemble ancient Greece and Rome. There is a local law that restricts any
building to a maximum height proportional to the width of the road, creating a feeling
of light and space.
In the afternoon we visited the American and American Indian Museums before
returning to the hotel after walking 8½ miles during the day. Like the
majority of American cities, Washington is built on a grid system. However,
walking back we walked a few blocks past the hotel and suddenly entered an
intimidating area, certainly not one for foreign visitors.
The second day started with
an organised trip to Mount Vernon, passing close to the Pentagon. Mount Vernon
was the plantation house of George Washington, the first American President,
and now a national museum site. The house and farm are presented as they would
have been at the time of the American Independence in 1776. The whole site was
very interesting and includes the grave of Washington, making it almost an
American shrine.
On the third day there was
a visit to the Military Cemetery at Arlington. The site covers over 200 acres
and contains over 400,000 graves, not only of services personnel from every
America war, but also those of people involved with significant events in
American history including J. F. Kennedy, beside whose grave is an eternal
flame. There are also numerous monuments within the cemetery including one for
victims of the Lockerbie bombing and the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier contains the remains of American
Servicemen from both World Wars and the Korean War, and is guarded
24-hours-per-day by members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known
as the Old Guard. The guard is changed with an elaborate ceremony every 30
minutes and I found this ceremony hilarious. Nobody does pomp and ceremony like
the British anyway, but the American style of marching never quite looks right
and the motions of the commanding NCO when inspecting the guard resembled
robotic dancing. We were expecting him to start break dancing, complete with
music, at any time.
We disembarked the train in New Jersey and continued into New York by
coach. We had wanted to visit New York for a number of years and were excited
at our first, distant views of the city.
Our hotel was not far from the Lincoln Tunnel, close to Times Square
and, very soon after checking in, we went for a walk around the Square. It was
very, very busy. Hordes of people making it almost impossible to walk anywhere
and it felt quite intimidating. Real exciting though, to actually be in the Big
Apple, the city that never sleeps.
In New York we had a 2-day hop-on hop-off bus pass and the next
morning our Riviera guide took us to the nearest bus stop. We stayed on the bus
for the whole circular tour from Times Square, past the Empire State Building
to Lower Manhattan, returning alongside the Hudson River-front and Central
Park. The guide on the bus was an older black guy who, while very knowledgeable
about his city, was absolutely hilarious and had everybody on the bus in
stitches.
After the bus ride, we had a short walk in Central Park before heading
off down 5th Avenue with it’s many landmarks: Trump Tower; the
Chrysler Building and many famous shops. We had a wish list for New York:
Central Park; the Empire State Building; Ground Zero; the Statue of Liberty; a
ride on the Subway, and were determined to visit them all.
Coming to the Empire State, we went in the express lift to firstly the
79th floor where there was an indoor viewing area, and then via a
second lift to the 86th floor where there was an outdoor area
providing stunning panoramic views, not just over the whole of New York but for
many miles beyond. We were lucky to engage with a security guard who pointed
out all the NY districts and the different skyscrapers. Absolutely brilliant.
The New York skyscrapers are built on a volcanic bedrock called
Schist, that lies very close to the surface and gives a very firm foundation
without any movement.
From the Empire State we visited Macy’s Department Store, Madison Square Garden and the Pennsylvania Hotel, before trying to reach the River Hudson and becoming caught up with all the participants of an LGBT conference at a nearby centre.
After a beer sitting on the Hudson Riverfront, we had our first decent
meal of the trip in the Red Lobster restaurant on Times Square. While New York
was expensive, we thought the meal reasonably priced and had never had so much
sea food at one sitting. We thoroughly enjoyed the Caesar Salad starter, we had
been missing fresh food. Our main courses were both mixed dishes of different
seafoods, one with linguine. Lobster, prawns, crab, mussels and scallops. A
superb meal, but far too much.
Back at the hotel we went to the roof top bar to look out over
night-time New York. A dazzling amount of lights and numerous planes in the sky.
Our second day in New York started with a bus ride to Lower Manhattan.
The guide on this bus, in total contrast to yesterday’s guide, was very
offensive to the British majority on board. Tipping in the US is mandatory but
this guy must lead a very poor life.
We walked around the area of City Hall and Wall Street with the many
grand public buildings and court houses. Brenda followed tradition and had her
photograph taken beside the balls of the ‘Charging Bull’, said to be the most
fondled sculpture in the world. We then boarded the ferry for a trip we had
booked to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, where all US immigrants
between 1890 and 1924 were processed. It was special to visit the Statue and
humbling inside the Clearance Hall on Ellis Island. Both sites were extremely
busy and all the ferries shuttling to and fro were full to bursting. At $18.50
for each person, there must be a lot of money being made and yet the site of
Ellis Island was derelict until the 1970’s.
Back in Manhattan, we visited Ground Zero, the site of 9/11. The
monument is profound. It consists of a square the size of the base of one of
the World Trade Towers that is surrounded by a stone plinth with all the names
of those that perished. Inside, on the four sides, water falls over tiled walls
to a lower level that has a square hole in the centre over which the water
again falls. The bottom of this hole cannot be seen from the stone plinths.
Surely, there cannot be any one person in the world that won’t be moved,
standing beside the site of 9/11, and yet the place was noisy. The water itself
is noisy but people were talking loudly around the site which was almost
offensive. At the Arlington Cemetery, there were notices everywhere stating
that the site is hallowed ground and to be respectful and keep noise to a
minimum. We had expected the same at 9/11. Similarly, the memorial beside the
site, in the shape of a dove, was a magnificent structure, but inside, it was
full of shops. Only the Americans could make a commercial enterprise out of
something like this. Beside the 9/11 site is a new skyscraper, built on the
site of the second World Trade Centre. It is a dramatic design of building and
rises 1776 feet into the air, representing the year of American Independence, making
it the tallest building in New York.
We took the subway back to the hotel. Again, something we had wanted to do. We had a beer and a meal in an Irish bar before catching a bus for a night tour. The highlight of this tour was crossing over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn and seeing the night-time Manhattan skyline from this perspective.
The following morning, we left the hotel at 05:15 for a 9½
hour train journey across New York State to Buffalo, before crossing into
Canada and stopping in Niagara Falls. While the journey was long, the seats
were comfortable and the scenery alongside the Hudson River was stunning. After
passing through Amsterdam and Rome (both US), we left the train and continued
by coach across the Rainbow Bridge into Canada, with their miserable Immigration
officials. Just minutes after crossing the border, we reached our hotel.
After checking in, we went for a walk alongside the Niagara river
front, looking across to the falls. Spectacular. We were very surprised though,
to find the road running up the hill beside the hotel, to be a little Blackpool
full of amusement arcades and tacky fairground rides. We walked up this road to
find a pair of moccasins each. The clip-clop of slippers on the floor of the
boat annoys us both so we had decided to buy moccasins while in Canada. We did
buy a pair each, but very expensive.
The whole of the next day, the seventh
day, was spent in Niagara. Firstly, we boarded the Hornblower ferry and
cruised at the foot of the American Falls and then into the spray of the
Canadian Falls. It was a fantastic experience and one everybody should try to
do. There are two sets of falls at Niagara, separated by an island. One is on
the American side of the border, and one on the Canadian. The Canadian falls
are far bigger and known as the “Horseshoe Falls” because of their shape. This
shape causes the water flowing over the falls, to collide at the bottom producing
the spray that rises far into the sky. After the cruise, we went into a set of
tunnels that allowed views behind the falls. Not much to see because the water
excludes any actual view, but you could really feel the power of the water.
We had an adventure pass that allowed use of shuttle buses around the
different sites associated with the falls and so we boarded one to see the
whirlpools below. These whirlpools are caused by the shape of the gorge which
the river runs in, swirling masses of water that have carved a great circular
hollow out of the gorge side. We found the whole of the Niagara site amazing
and were so glad the tour we had chosen included this.
The
following morning was our last day and we left the hotel at 8am. This left
plenty of time to reach Toronto and the guide and driver arranged a trip to
visit the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. While this was a lightening visit, it
was one of the highlights amongst many. The town was timeless and very picturesque
with mostly timber-clad buildings from the colonial era. We walked down to the
lake, Lake Ontario, a vast body of water that resembled the sea. The Niagara
River could be seen flowing into the lake with the preserved Fort George on the
opposite bank. The skyscrapers of Toronto could be seen across the lake with
the opposite shoreline just visible. There was a large number of black
squirrels scampering about the place. Apparently they were imported from Russia
but escaped captivity and have become a threat to the native grey’s.
The
coach journey then continued to Toronto, although most people were sleeping. We
crossed the Welland Canal over a very high bridge. This canal joins Lake Ontario
and Erie, bypassing River Niagara and the Falls, and we were lucky enough to
see a Great Lakes Steamer passing through a lock below us.
The
road into Toronto was extremely busy but we duly arrived at the foot of the
1,815 feet high CN Tower that dominates the Toronto skyline. We spent two hours
in the tower, travelling to the indoor observation level at 1,135 feet and the
glass floor and outdoor terrace one level below. The external elevators travel
at 15mph and reach the top in 58 seconds. They are constructed with glass sides
and glass panels in the floors that give a real heady feeling, especially when
ascending. The views from the top are incredible.
CN Tower, Toronto
Comments
Post a Comment