Give me some ideas for my NYC trip!

• I'm planning a trip to NYC with my girlfriend in November, I need ideas of a place to stay and things to do; we've both seen many of the touristy things, but wouldn't be opposed to seeing them again. I want to do the trip on a tight budget ($500-600 for the weekend, less if possible) since we are both students. Also, I would like to make the trip as romantic as possible. Any ideas?

• Answer:

  $600 should be totally sufficient for a romantic weekend in New York. My suggestions, based on romantic stuff my girlfriend and I did back when I lived in NYC: - Stay at the Chelsea Lodge. It's in Chelsea (obviously), and has extremely cute, really romantic rooms that are 'European style' -- i.e., you share a bathroom with two or three other rooms on your floor. I've stayed there many times; it's much nicer than a hostel and much more affordable than a hotel, and the people who run it are very nice and will make you feel welcome. Extra points for the fact that it's in a brownstone on a street, not on the avenue in a big hotel-like building, and for having a pretty good diner around the corner. - Go to the Cloisters. It's a beautiful museum of medieval art located at the very top of Manhattan (at 207th St., I think) inside a huge castle, which is in turn inside a lovely park. It's really quite unbelievable that it's even there -- out of the way and special. You walk from the subway station through the park to the castle, and you can see the river the whole way. - Go to Po for dinner on Cornelia St. in the West Village. It's small, very elegant, and has very good, imaginative (i.e., not Little Italy) Italian food for reasonable prices. Dinner with a nice bottle of wine shouldn't run you more than $60–$70, which is fine on your budget, I would guess, and it's a nice out-of-the-way place on a beautiful little street (W. H. Auden lived on it). Afterwards, you can walk to Doma, IMO the best coffee shop in New York City, which is at 14th and Perry. - You can make a great day downtown: walk from Chelsea to the Strand, eat a knish at the knish place on the eastern side of Houston (near the Landmark Cinema), see a movie, have dinner at Teresa's, a great Polish place on (I think) Ave. A between 5th and 6th. - A nice, tasty place for lunch is the Fairway Cafe, which is up above the Fairway on Broadway in the 70s. it has nice big windows and you can look out over the UWS. - And two more: there's a great Japanese confectioners on 5th Ave near Saks (the name of which, sadly, I can't remember). And, if you want to go somewhere more uptown, make a few hours out of St. John the Divine (at 110th and Amsterdam), which is the largest (not tallest) cathedral in the world, and stop in at the Hungarian Pastry Shop across the avenue. Make sure to check out St. John's wacky children's garden, which has giant surreal statuary. Wow -- boy oh boy do I miss New York! I hope I can move back there before I die. Writing all this has made me jealous!