Downtown

Crammed with character, in Manhattan's southern tip financiers rub shoulders with the bohemian art crowd, in an area that was once the most densely populated on earth, and sometimes still feels like it. Start on Wall Street in the financial district, where traders make multi-billion-dollar deals surrounded some of the city's most historic buildings. Admire the Romanesque facade of the New York Stock Exchange while reflecting that it was designed to evoke substance and stability, a symbol of America's economy at the heart of the world financial system. To put it in context visit the museum at Federal Hall where George Washington was sworn in as the first US President, or the Federal Reserve Bank, where you can gaze at the billions of dollars worth of gold held in the vaults.

At Ground Zero work continues to redevelop the World Trade Center site. A memorial and museum dedicated to the attacks of September 11th 2001 are part of the plans, but even now the sheer scale of the building site, packed into such a densely populated area, is a sobering reminder of what happened here.

Heading north, and it's time for fun in the bars and stores of TriBeCa and SoHo. The designer boutiques in these fashionable neighborhoods compete with the niche art galleries and cutting edge clubs of Chelsea and the Meatpacking district, but they're so close together that you don't have to choose. Why not start the evening in one place and then move on to the other.

Feeling hungry? Well, Chinatown is on the doorstep, and restaurants and food markets full of exotic ingredients, spill out onto the streets. It's not just Chinese food either, you can get a taste of Japan, Malaysia or Vietnam too, and graze your way round Asia in just a couple of city blocks. If you'd prefer pasta, in the midst of it all you can still find a few streets of Little Italy.

Above Houston, Greenwich Village was once a byword for all things Bohemian and artistic. Now it has some of the world's most expensive real estate, but the charm's still there - great bars and restaurants crowd every corner, and even those on a tighter budget can enjoy Washington Square Park, where street performers play great jazz whenever the weather's warm.