Wed 18th Oct

It was an early start to the day as Ali and Brett had a 7.30am departure for the next leg of their USA trip; a 5 hour flight across the country to Venice Beach. Mark left a bit later for his ride with the NYC chapter of the Rapha bike club and Annabelle and I left after that for our 10 am Financial Crisis walking tour. Matt was the last to leave for his photography session over the Brooklyn Bridge.

There were only 8 on our walking tour and I thought the small group size might make for a good experience. Whilst it was easy to hear our guide, Sandy, over the constant construction noise that plagues this area, he didn’t have too much to add to what we’d already heard on our free tours; and this tour cost $50 USD p/p! Anyway, we had a stroll around the Wall street area and were taken down some different and interesting streets and viewed the shortest street in NYC. Our tour group passed by the Museum of American Finance at one point and Annabelle and I went back there for a visit at the end of the walking tour. This is only a small Museum but worth a visit for the small $8 entry fee as you can cover it off in about an hour and see some interesting exhibits and artifacts important to the history of the development of the American financial system. We were rather hungry by this stage at 1pm and so headed back to the atmospheric Stone Street to find somewhere for lunch. Adrienne’s Pizza venue (http://www.adriennespizzabarnyc.com/) was absolutely packed so we thought we’d give this a go. Unfortunately, the pizzas were so large we knew we would never finish one and so we opted to share a sandwich but the pizzas sure looked good! By this time both Mark and Matt were on their way home so we headed back to the apartment as well.

We headed back downtown around 5.30 pm for dinner at Trinity Place and this was a most interesting dining venue (http://www.trinityplacenyc.com/). The restaurant opened in 2006 and is located at basement level in the grounds of an old bank with the bar and restaurant both set behind the original 35 tonne bank vault door that dates back to 1904. It was a fun place to celebrate our second last night in NYC and we walked home afterwards with a pit stop at Baskin Robbins.