I entered Central Park at 59th Street, Columbus Circle, a tangle of curved roads and angry cab drivers. I’d already walked a fair amount, almost half the length of Manhattan from the lowest end of Chelsea, all the while surrounded by traffic. The relief washed over me when, from the street, I could finally see the crowd of trees hovering above the cars. I’d been to Central Park before, but only on brisk walks, crosstown buses, and vicariously in almost every movie set in New York City. On this day, a hot, cloudy one in mid-August, I planned to wander.

Green was everywhere I looked. In Central Park, the view are layered: slices of green are stacked vertically, topped with beautiful architecture built of stone, glass, and steel. The bodies of water, victims of giant summer algae blooms, sparkled green too, almost mimicking the park’s great lawns and meadows.

The Bethesda Terrace provided a place for a much needed rest. Hundreds of people circled the fountain holding selfie sticks at arm’s length, while hundreds more shuffled through the lower passage, listening on as an opera singer’s shimmering voice echoed against the tile and sandstone.

Walking along East Drive led me to Iphigene’s Walk and The Ramble, a central area of the Park that could by easily mistaken for a deep, quiet, well-paved forest in a town far from NYC. The air smells different here, damp and clean, the tree canopies shade wanderers from the harsh sun and provide a place to escape the crowds that are inevitable in more well-worn areas of the park. Birds and squirrels rustled in the brush and darted across the path. Passersby nodded a silent greeting. A young couple sat along the banks of The Lake and gazed out over the rippling water.

After spending some time alone in The Ramble, I made my way back to the city, back to where people jogged and sauntered, talked and texted, yelled and laughed. I watched the world walk by, people of every background and interest, people who’d lived their whole lives in New York, and people who had traveled across the world to be there for one day.

I sat for a while, feet exhausted from the full day of walking, and looked on at a man with two sticks and a string creating giant, human-sized bubbles. Iridescent and amorphous, the bubbles reflected the surrounding trees in wild, psychedelic colors. They grew and caught the breeze, drifting a ways before popping and disappearing. Every head turned, people stopped to enjoy the show, they chatted with their neighbors, and then left, continuing on to different corners of the park, and eventually, back out into the city.

Central Park is the largest park in the city of New York, one of the largest public parks in the country, and a wildly magical place no matter the time of year. It is, as the name suggests, centrally located and very easily accessible on foot or on public transportation from just about every corner of Manhattan.