The day I took the Staten Island ferry

Today was my last day in NY before I move to Boston (I will come back here for one day at the end of my trip, but I don’t think I will have the time to visit a lot of places).
The weather forecast was right: today, we’ve had a wonderful day and I don’t regret I planned my visit of Staten Island for today.
I left the hotel at 8.30, which I thought was very late as I had to stop at the bank, but I arrived just in time to take 9.30am ferry at the extreme South of Manhattan. The Staten Island ferries are some very big boats: you have at least 3 decks, You have a lot of seats inside and also outside (that’s great when you want to take pictures). It was quite cold anyway and I stayed inside most of the time because I was having breakfast (a huge muffin and a surprisingly good coffee, both for a very reasonable price).
It took only 25 minutes maybe to arrive in Staten Island… this was much earlier than I thought. That’s why I decided to walk to the botanical Garden, which was the first of the 3 places I wanted to visit (the other 2 was opening at 1.00pm only). On the way I saw the SI Yankees Stadium (baseball), and a tribute to the the WTC victims.
Did you know that Staten Island was a BIG island???? The road was looong before I arrived a the botanical garden, which is located inside Snug Harbor, the cultural center of the island. The place is extremely quiet and beautiful, with a lot of flowers, trees, benches, cottages (one of them was a restaurant and 2 guys were playing jazz outside). It was perfect to relax and take a million pictures. They even had a Chinese Garden with a wonderful pavillon.
At 1.00pm, I went to the Noble Maritime museum, also located in Snug Harbor and dedicated to a printmaker (John A. Noble). It exhibits his work, his houseboat sudio (!!!! - they’ve put a part of a boat inside the museum!!!!), and a collection related to Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a retirement home for mariners.

After this I went back to the ferry terminal (by bus this time) to take the bus to the Historic Richmond Town museum. This museum is a trip into the past. It was like the Van Cortlandt house yesterday, but with 28 buildings dating from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries. Some people with historic costumes were explaining the history of the house they were in. I also took a million pictures there (several shots per room, they probably thought I was mad!!).

It’s time to pack my luggage now (it’s already 10.00pm and I have to leave the hotel at 7.30 tomorrow morning). I’ll try to post a message tomorrow, but I don’t know yet how it will be like at the hotel in Boston.

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