On this route we will visit one of the most famous parks in the city and surely of the world: Central Park and some of its best-known tourist sites, such as Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History or the great meadows of its interior with excellent views over the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Although the park is huge, and it will be difficult to choose what to do in a single day, after reading this route I hope you have more clear and you can choose what to see in Central Park during your visit.
Contenido
We started at the Met
We start the route in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (hereinafter, Met). It is on E81th Street, to the right of Central Park if you are going up street numbers while you are walking. Upon entering, ask for a map to be able to make a selection of what you wish to see. Enter costs, from the 1 of March of 2018, 25 $ per person, and is included in all the tourist cards of New York.
Apart from visiting the treasures of the Met that most interest you (they have a large Egyptian collection, painting and even cloisters of Spanish and French churches and medieval art in The Cloisters), it is especially recommended to go to the top floor of the Met, where there is a place to rest and while enjoying the wonderful view of New York from there (it’s called something like Met Observatory, Roof Garden, or similar)
We crossed for the first time Central Park
At the end of the visit, go to the right of the Met, go down to the 79th, and after crossing this street, just enter a walk to Central Park only for pedestrians. Follow the directions to get to Belvedere Castle, which is in the middle of the park and has good views over the area that this time you are not going to visit (Great Lawn, Shakespeare Garden, …) In summer in the Delacorte Theater, which is located just below the left of the Belvedere Castle, the festival is held Shakespeare in the Park, where every year two plays by Shakespeare are performed by famous actors and admission is free. For more information, I recommend you visit our article of Shakespeare festival in the Park, where we tell you how to get the tickets or the works that you will be able to see this year.
For those who have more time, or who want to visit the Great Lawn, where you are likely to see people practicing baseball, and the Delacorte Theater, the easiest way to get there is to exit the Met to the left, up Fifth Avenue, and on the street E84th begins a pedestrian path that surrounds the Met and it will go right to the Great Lawn, then surround it on the left to go to see Turtle Pond, a small lake with a beautiful view of Belvedere Castle, the Delacorte Theater and go out again by the Shakespeare Garden to W79th Street as in the previous route. Behind the Met, on your way to Great Lawn, you can see the obelisk, brought from Egypt in the 19th century, and which was installed in the park at 1881. It has 21 meters in height, about 3600 years old and is one of the two named as Cleopatra’s Needles, the other one is located in London in Westminster.
We visited the Natural History Museum
After visiting Belvedere Castle, continue to the right of the castle, and you come to the exit of W79th Street or W81th Street on the other side of the park, where our next stop is located one of the most famous natural science museums in the world, the American Museum of Natural History. Without a doubt, it is worth entering and going to see the dinosaur zone, 4ª plant, the dioramas with stuffed animals from all continents and its collection of minerals and meteorites, located on the ground floor of the building.
The tribute to John Lennon and Sheep Meadow
When you finish at the Natural History Museum, go to the W72th street, either by metro, well walk, it’s just a subway stop, and there we find the Dakota building, which is where John Lennon lived and was killed. Crossing the street and entering back into Central Park, is Strawberry Fields, the part of the park tribute to Lennon. We crossed Strawberry Fields, and we continued downhill through the park, and at the height of the W66th, Sheep Meadow, for me the most beautiful view of New York from Central Park next to the terrace of the Met.
We ended up at Columbus Circle
We continue walking to the 7th Avenue with the W58th street where we can leave the park towards Manhattan just in Columbus Circle, and see the statue of Columbus. Near this area there are many things to visit: Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center, St Patrick’s, … but with the beating that you will have the best is to end the day of visits in Central Park, go to the hotel and stick a Good shower before going out to dinner.
Map of the route through Central Park
Video of the route
Here we leave a video where we show you the main sites that appear in this route through Central Park:
