Staten Island Ferry

One of the five borroughs of New York is Staten Island. It is a 25 minute ride from Manhattan on a large ferry. The ferry is free and one leaves every 10 minutes. This is a picture of the big orange Staten Island ferry taken from Brooklyn looking back toward Manhattan, it looks so tiny but in reality the ferry is huge, you can see the Statue of Liberty in the back ground.

There are five ferries that operate between Staten and Manhattan Islands. Apparently there are different levels of reliability of each of the ferries. The oldest, commissioned in 1952, is the JFK and happens to be the most reliable and therefore the most beloved of all the fleet, we were lucky enough to board the JFK for our trip across to Staten Island.

They use the old style life jackets...

Leaving the terminal at Manhattan we had a great view of the Brooklyn Bridge...

...and Brooklyn...

...and the large Watchtower sign atop Brooklyn Bethel...

We said goodbye to Downtown NYC and Manhattan Island

We cruised past the Statue of Liberty

...and were fortunate enough to watch the sun set over this majestic statue 

We arrived on Staten Island and headed to a little Italian restaurant recommended by a Staten Island Local. He said the food was authentic Italian because the family who owned the restaurant bring in Nonnas from Italy every month to come cook for the restaurant in typical Italian Family style...so we headed a few blocks into Staten Island to find this little gem...

...unfortunately the restaurant was closed :( cause Nonna had gone fishing for the Fourth of July firework celebrations lol.

We found a quaint little pub ( they call it a bar here) and sat at the bar had fabulous local seafood and chatted to the friendly bar tender for a few hours before heading back to NY.

The little escape to the slower lifestyle of Staten Island was a delight, definitely a must do in NYC.