The best things to do on a rainy day in NYC

Step inside the stunning Victorian-style greenhouse at the entrance to the New York Botanical Gardens to discover a whole world of flora. It’s easy to forget you’re still in the city as you walk through displays of everything from aquatic plants to desert cacti to palm trees. The pitter-patter of rain on the glass roof creates a soothing soundtrack to your visit.

Fromage lovers have long known about the legendary selection at Murray’s Cheese. The store even has its own cheese caves, for goodness sake. Most people don’t realize that you can also take classes at the Greenwich Village location—topics range from making homemade mozzarella to pairing local cheeses with craft beer. And yes, most classes include tastings of the good stuff.

Carreau Club, the nation’s first pétanque bar, offters both outdoor and indoor locations so you can get your game on while sipping a drink. 

The indoor venue at Brooklyn's Industry City makes for great night out with a full bar, craft beer, wine and cocktails, and a small deli counter. For the uninitiated, pétanque (pronounced puh-TONK) is a bocce-ball style French boules sport gaining popularity in the U.S., starting here in NYC. 

The detailed Museum of Broadway highlights over 500 productions from the 1700s all the way to the present. You'll get to see props, ornate costumes, production notes and so much more that you wouldn’t get to see otherwise. Why not pair this experiece with a trip to the theater? Here's our constantly updated list of critics' picks.

This Madison Avenue institution began as the private library of financier J. Pierpont Morgan and is his artistic gift to the city. Building on the collection Morgan amassed in his lifetime, the museum houses first-rate works on paper, including drawings by Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Picasso; three Gutenberg Bibles; a copy of Frankenstein annotated by Mary Shelley; manuscripts by Dickens, Poe, Twain, Steinbeck and Wilde; sheet music handwritten by Beethoven and Mozart; and an original edition of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol that’s displayed every yuletide. Also keep an eye out for rotating special exhibitions. 

In 2006, a massive renovation and expansion orchestrated by Renzo Piano brought more natural light into the building and doubled the available exhibition space. A theater, Gilder Lehrman Hall, regularly hosts recitals and concerts.

Part museum, part spy training ground, Spyscape offers aspiring intelligence agents the opportunity to test their mettle.

First, visitors can read up on real-life spies like Alan Turing, the mathematician who cracked the Enigma code, and Virginia Hall, the one-legged operative who helped escaped POWs travel to safety during World War II. Then it’s time for your assessment: After you sneak through a hallway peppered with laser beams, submit to a lie detector test and test all kind of other Bond-style skills, the museum uses a profiling system developed by a former British Intelligence officer to grade your performance.

This "crazy mini-golf course" and entertainment complex straight from London offers three nine-hole golf courses across 23,000 square feet under 20-foot-high ceilings. For those new to the game, "crazy golf" is a British spin on mini-golf, but it's for a 21-and-over audience since craft cocktails are served by caddies on the course.

At Swingers NoMad, expect six cocktail bars with signature classic cocktails from London and D.C., as well as a variety cocktails created specifically for NYC, private rooms you can rent, an opulent clubhouse and gourmet street food vendors with pizza, burgers and cookies.

A rainy night spent gazing at priceless works of art? Ah, the romance. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Date Nights" give visitors an opportunity to become acquainted with artwork with informal drop-in gallery chats, the chance to listen in on gorgeous live music and sip on yummy cocktails. Date nights are held every Friday and Saturday. Extra bonus: For New Yorkers, date nights are pay-what-you-wish!

While the giant signs that adorn this department store with the label of “The World’s Largest Store” are not true anymore, there’s no doubt that the flagship Macy’s is massive (with a big history to boot). For over a century, New Yorkers and visitors from the world over have been visiting Macy’s at its iconic location at 34th Street and Broadway.

Though originally founded as a dry goods emporium in the 19th century, today shoppers flock to the store's 2.2 million square feet—which takes up a whole city block—to buy clothes, accessories and home goods.

Pro-tip: Look for the cool wooden escalators, which feel like stepping back in time.

This fascinating museum—actually a series of restored tenement apartments at 97 Orchard Street—is accessible only by guided tour. Tickets to The Tenement Museum are sold at the visitors’ center at 108 Orchard Street; tours often sell out, so it’s wise to book ahead. 

Tours give glimpses into the daily lives of immigrant clans that called the building home over the decades.

When Madame Tussaud first started creating wax figures in Europe in the late 18th century, she immortalized figures from the bloody French Revolution. Now two centuries after her death, Tussaud’s legacy lives on with museums in major cities around the world, yet few can compare in either size or popularity with the five-story Times Square edition.

A favorite among tourists and young, culture-obsessed visitors, it is best to avoid school holidays when checking out the 200-plus wax figures, which include various movie stars, singers, athletes and politicians. Each model is painstakingly made by teams of artists through the use of precise measurements, photographs, casts and oil paints. The result is so uncanny that the picture you take next to President Obama or Jennifer Aniston might just look real enough to trick your friends on social media–which alone might be worth the admission price.

You could easily spend a few hours wandering through Mario Batali’s Italian food hall and market on your own, but to make the most of the gourmet ingredients, you’ll want to book a class with Eataly’s La Scuola. Avid home cooks might be interested in a step-by-step class on making traditional ragu or cacio e pepe, while foodies who would rather eat than cook can sign up for one of the four-course feasts prepared by a professional chef.

Think of Q.E.D. as after-school activities for grown-ups. On any given night, the venue might have a comedy show, drink-and-draw event or beginner’s swing dancing class. Best of all, the classes and events come dirt cheap—and since you probably won’t pay more than $50, you’ll definitely have a few bucks left over for a beer.