I returned to the south west USA to see all the sights I missed the first time around. We hired a car from Alamo at San Franciso Airport and headed off, following the well worn tourist route: Yosemite - Death Valley - Las Vegas - Grand Canyon - Painted Desert - Monument Valley (amazing) - LA - San Francisco. The highlight of this part of the trip was Monument Valley, which we drove around - don't be fooled by the badly surfaced road at the start of the valley - it's there to encourage you to take their 4x4 trucks and leave your hire car in the car-park! We also managed to see a football world cup match in San Francisco - Cameroon vs. Brazil (the eventual winners of the whole event). Again you really need your own transport to see the US properly! I was a bit disappointed in the Grand Canyon, maybe we should have taken a trip down into the Canyon rather than stand with the hoards of people at the top!
From here we flew up to Toronto to visit friends and went on a day trip up the Toronto Tower and down to Niagara Falls, which were spectacular, on par with Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe/Zambia, but not in such interesting surroundings.
We then flew down to Boston, from where I took the train down to New York. What a city! Big, scary, brash, fantastic architecture, funny accents and incredibly expensive. There simply no way to do this city on the cheap, so don't plan to spend more than a couple of days there, unless you've won the lottery.
If in New York, don't miss the Grand Met. Museum, it's jam-packed with more works of art than any other I've been to. They had now less than two rooms dedicated to Monet alone! I preferred the Empire State building to the Twin Towers but sadly these aren't even an option anymore :o( |
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