It was bagels again for breakfast, this time from Davidovich Bakery at Chelsea Market. It was a great place to start the day before it started getting busy. There are loads of outlets serving a wide variety of different foods, and this month they’ve gone all out on creepy-as-f**k Halloween displays. Don’t let it put you off though if that’s not your thing – it’s well worth a look. As well as our breakfast, we bought some halva from a stall called Seed + Mill which I would definitely recommend – the halva is delicious and the staff are lovely. If you haven’t come across halva before, it’s a delicious sweet made from sesame and sugar, which Seed + Mill then augment with additional flavours like the se salt and dark chocolate versions that we bought.

After our breakfast and a bit more of a mooch around Chelsea Market, we hopped up to the High Line, an old disused railway track that has been converted into a beautiful pathway and garden along the old route.

Making the most of being in the area, we embarked on a West Village self guided walking tour, again courtesy of Lonely Planet, but with some of our own tweaks. First on the list was the apartment block featured in Friends, of which Mark and I are both huge fans. It was awesome and surreal seeing it in real life when you’ve seen it on the TV oh so many times.

Just around the corner is the Cherry Lane Theatre, a key icon in New York and America’s Theatre history, providing a jumping off point for some big names like Harold Pinter and Kim Hunter.

Next on our walk was the Stonewall Inn, the birthplace of the gay revolution in the US and a symbol of pride and equality today. You can’t miss it either which was handy!

Nestled amongst the West Village houses and shops is the grand architecture of the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library. This impressive building was once a court house and boasts a stunning clock tower.

We took a short pit stop at Stumptown Coffee Roasters, and enjoyed a great coffee before heading towards Washington Square Park. The park is right next to New York University, and is often buzzing with students. We saw one (presumably) English major offering up her poetry skills – all you needed to do was give her a topic and she would write you a poem. Not a bad way to fund your uni life! I love that there was a rainbow in the fountain to continue the pride theme! Can you see it?

We carried on our walk via Cafe Wha? A live music venue with a good line-up of A-listers like Bob Dylan who apparently performed here in their early years. Our last sight before lunch was the IFC cinema, which we didn’t go into, but is meant to be a good local art house cinema.

We finished up our walk with lunch at Joe’s Pizza, a West Village institution serving huge slices of thin pizza that are so crispy and delicious. There’s a lot of love for Joe’s pizza out there so I reckon it’s up there with New York’s best.