The Cloisters: the medieval north tip
The wildest park, a medieval monastery on the cliff, and old-growth forest down to the salt marsh. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. 190 St station & the Heather Garden
Come up the long lift from the deep A-train platform straight into Fort Tryon Park. The Heather Garden runs along the ridge in front of you — three acres of planting on the cliff edge, best in the morning before the light goes flat.

2. The Hudson overlook
Walk the ridge path to the western edge, where the land drops to the river and the Palisades cliffs rise on the New Jersey side — a wall of basalt left undeveloped on purpose. The highest natural point in Manhattan is up here; the view is the reason the park was given to the city.

3. The Cloisters
The Met's medieval branch, built in the 1930s from pieces of five French monasteries shipped over stone by stone, set on the high ground like a fortress. Inside are the cloister gardens and the unicorn tapestries. Go even if museums aren't your thing; the building is the exhibit.

4. Inwood Hill Park (the forest)
Down off the ridge and north into the last natural forest in Manhattan — caves, old-growth tulip trees, the only place on the island that still looks roughly as it did when the Lenape lived here. The trails are unpaved and genuinely wild.

5. The salt marsh
At the park's northern edge, where the Harlem River meets Spuyten Duyvil Creek, a restored tidal salt marsh — egrets, reeds, the city's last bit of natural shoreline. Stand a moment; it's about as far from Midtown as the island gets.

6. Dyckman St
Out of the park to the Inwood streets and the Dyckman Street stop on the A. There's good Dominican food on the avenue if you've worked up an appetite; the train runs express back downtown.

The Cloisters: the medieval north tip