The New York Times 36 Hours

Burrell Collection

People look at artworks on display in a museum with walls that are painted a dark teal. Framed paintings are at eye level, and larger geometric works hang in a row farther above.

3 p.m. Wander through woodlands to a world-class museum

Start your weekend at the Burrell Collection, a glass-roofed art museum that rises out of a meadow in the city’s southern Pollok Country Park like a vast, gleaming greenhouse. The 9,000-piece collection was donated to the city at the close of World War II by William Burrell, a Glasgow shipping merchant, and opened in this specially commissioned building in 1983. The free-entry museum reopened in 2022 after a six-year refurbishment of its red sandstone, glass and wood interiors. Though it is busy, the Burrell offers a peaceful immersion in an unmistakably personal collection, drifting from Degas and Rembrandt to tabernacles, tulip-motif textiles and ancient Chinese roof tiles. The tapestries are especially wonderful, including the palatially sized “Wagner Garden Carpet” made by master weavers in 17th-century Iran.

Papercup

Diners inside a cafe sit at small wooden tables. On the wall is a large mural of a blue rose painted in the style of traditional tattoo art. A banner across the rose reads:

10 a.m. Grab a brekkie roll, then discover a Glaswegian jungle

If it’s not raining, take advantage of clear skies with a botanic stroll in Glasgow’s affluent West End. Grab breakfast at Papercup, a small and friendly cafe that has original period details, like egg-and-dart molding and an ornate ceiling rose. Try the brekkie roll with a sausage patty (£5), or eggs on toast with a side of vegan haggis (£8.50). From the cafe, wander to the Glasgow Botanic Gardens, either directly, along Great Western Road, or take the more meandering Kelvin Walkway down by the River Kelvin, crossing the blue, steel Botanic Gardens Footbridge to emerge into the scented gardens on the other bank. Enter the domed Kibble Palace, a spectacular glasshouse in which to explore a jungle of orchids, begonias and ferns, among other leafy treasures.

Hoos

The inside of a home goods store. Blankets, cushions, candles and more are on wooden shelf displays.

12 p.m. Browse Scandi home goods and woolly Scottish knitwear

Glaswegians have an appetite for sustainable shopping and for secondhand goods of all stripes. Hoos, next to the Botanic Gardens, stocks chic Scandi home goods, while the Glasgow Vintage Co., farther along Great Western Road from Papercup, has a thoughtful selection of second-hand Scottish knitwear alongside show-stopping coats and dresses from the 1970s. Up the hill on Otago Street, above Perch & Rest Coffee, Kelvin Apothecary sells a nice range of gifts including handmade Scottish soaps and wooden laundry and cleaning tools. In the cobbled Otago Lane is the chaotic Voltaire and Rousseau secondhand bookshop, with teetering, vertical book piles. Unlike many Glasgow shops, this store isn’t the most dog-friendly, because of the resident cat, BB, who supervises from his perch at the till.

36 HOURS – New York City

By Becky Hughes Photographs by Karsten Moran

Friday – 3:30 p.m. Get a bird’s eye view of the city

Pack in 400 years of history at the Museum of the City of New York in East Harlem ($20 suggested admission), opposite Central Park at the top end of Museum Mile. Its ongoing exhibition, “New York at Its Core,” will give you a glimpse of the neighborhoods you’ll encounter this weekend, and an overview of the many eras of the city’s development, including its few decades as the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, its 19th-century shift to an immigrant hub, the growth of the city’s park program after the New Deal and the birth of the punk and hip-hop subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s.

6 p.m. – Go grand in Midtown

To the dismay of the too-cool-for-school set, Midtown is having a moment. Rockefeller Center is enticing popular restaurateurs with real-estate deals, aiming to draw locals and tourists alike. One glamorous newcomer is Le Rock, a French brasserie (from the owners of the popular TriBeCa restaurant Frenchette) with a sleek Art Deco design and a pricey (around $200 for two without drinks) menu of chilled oysters ($24 for a half dozen), bison au poivre ($60) and a long list of natural wines. For a night of grand Manhattan opulence, you’re in good hands. Other notable arrivals in the area: Detroit-style slices at Ace’s Pizza, Italian dining with outdoor seating at Lodi (a Times food critic’s favorite) and the 11-seat Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar.

Saturday – 10 a.m. Have a morning nosh

The real breakfast of champions is a pastrami, egg and cheese sandwich ($12.50) at Frankel’s Delicatessen & Appetizing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There may be no better representation of New York deli cuisine than the happy marriage between the Jewish staple meat, and the bodega and coffee-cart hero, the bacon, egg and cheese. If securing a window seat is a bust, the benches of McCarren Park across the street are calling your name. And for breakfast dessert (you’re on vacation!): Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop. You might recognize the bakery from the 2021 movie “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” but regulars know it for the unparalleled blueberry buttermilk doughnuts ($1.75).

11 a.m. Shop by the skyline

From Greenpoint, the northernmost neighborhood in Brooklyn, the views of the East River are unbeatable. Follow Noble Street all the way to the end, and you’ll find Greenpoint Terminal Market, a marketplace of vendors, every Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine. You’ll get a top-tier view of the Manhattan skyline while you sift through racks of vintage clothes, tables of art and jewelry, and maybe get a really bad portrait made ($5) to commemorate the day. For a little more shopping, try Big Night, a “shop for dinner, parties and dinner parties”; Dobbin St. Vintage Co-op for vintage furniture; and the mini-Japanese market at 50 Norman for housewares by Cibone and customized dashi packs from Dashi Okume.

1:30 p.m. – Dive into NYC ephemera

Hidden away from Williamsburg’s chain coffee shops and boutique gyms is City Reliquary ($7 entry) a tiny, colorful storefront wedged between buildings on Metropolitan Avenue. Inside is a quirky and fascinating collection of New York artifacts curated by this not-for-profit community museum and civic organization. Packed (really packed) into two small rooms, you’ll find defunct subway signage, souvenirs from New York World’s Fairs, samples of rocks from far below the city and an astonishing amount more. Look for the many iterations of paper deli cups, including the iconic Anthora cup (designed by Leslie Buck in the 1960s), which you’ll still see at diners and bodegas today.

6 p.m. – Dine in the heart of the Village

Greenwich Village cynics will complain about its restaurants: Lines everywhere, many cash-only and littered with celebrities and the rubberneckers that follow. For first-time Village diners, though, Bar Pitti unfailingly delivers an entertaining night out. Get there around 6 p.m. (with cash — no cards accepted) and there should be a short wait. Order the eggplant Parmesan if it’s on the chalkboard of specials ($14.50), pappardelle in a pink cream sauce ($23.50) and a bottle of Lambrusco ($50). The best Italian food in New York? It’s probably not the best on its block. But the brash-yet-somehow-charming service, prime location and killer people-watching makes Bar Pitti a true New York affair. For a more relaxed alternative, Malatesta Trattoria has an excellent tagliatelle ragu ($17, cash-only) and a lower-key ambience.

To state the obvious: You can’t see New York City in 36 hours. You could easily fill a couple of days eating your way down one street in Jackson Heights, Queens, or spend an entire weekend uncovering corners of Central Park. This guide is not designed to check landmarks off a list, but rather to offer visitors one slice of life in New York (minus the laundry schlepping and skyrocketing rent). Below you’ll find a subterranean piano bar, a hidden garden, market shopping against the backdrop of an unbeatable skyline and some big-picture and hyperlocal history to bring you a little closer to feeling the gestalt of the city.