The Met's medieval collection housed inside actual reassembled European cloisters, with herb gardens and Hudson views from Fort Tryon Park. What rewards the deliberate half-day is the sequence and the quiet: arrive at opening on a weekday before the tour groups, and the cloister gardens are nearly silent — birdsong and the smell of the Bonnefont herb garden, a genuine world away from Midtown. Time it for late spring or summer when the medieval herb and quince gardens are in bloom; in winter the planted cloisters go bare and much of the magic with them. Sit with the seven Unicorn Tapestries, then walk the Fort Tryon ramparts for the river. The catch is the trek to upper Manhattan.
The Met's medieval branch in Fort Tryon Park opened May 10, 1938; admission is included with Met general admission and a ticket is valid at the Fifth Avenue Met the same day. · metmuseum.org
Houses the famed Unicorn Tapestries, donated by John D. Rockefeller Jr., among over 5,000 medieval works. · metmuseum.org