One of the things I’ve discovered in my current trip to Manhattan is that it’s surprisingly easy to walk.   In the past I’ve always travelled by yellow cab, which whisks you from place to place with considerable speed but no regard for the intervening journey, or by subway which has its own romance of travelling in a loud and noisy underground.   But Manhattan is more compact than I’d realised.   I’ve been walking to breakfast at the Carlyle, a mere fifteen blocks up Fifth Avenue, whilst the doormen hose down the pavement.   And this morning I walked from the Financial District where I had a meeting to Greenwich Village, thereby connecting the bottom of the island to Tribeca and through Soho to Washington Square.   Of course, it wouldn’t have been enjoyable if the sun hadn’t shone.