New York’s big draw? A dawn date with Yoko Ono and a tour of the city's spectacular art displays (if you don't turn up when they are closed)

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Where can you find an art museum open at 4.30am for a magical event, view one of the world’s most valuable portraits, and drink a prickly pear margarita while admiring the works of Frida Kahlo? 

And where can get the best blow-dry in the world? That’s what gave it away, wasn’t it? It has to be New York, where grooming has always been legendary.

I was lucky enough to test this theory during the course of a long weekend there with Grant, my Other Half, because every woman knows you have to be on your immaculately pedicured toes when in New York.

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Where can you find an art museum open at 4.30am for a magical event, view one of the world’s most valuable portraits, and drink a prickly pear margarita while admiring the works of Frida Kahlo? It has to be New York

Nina was invited to attend the New York Festival International Radio Awards gala dinner to pick up a trophy for a Radio 4 programme she had made last year

At the risk of sounding like Piers Morgan, I’d been invited to attend the New York Festival International Radio Awards gala dinner to pick up a trophy for a Radio 4 programme I had made last year.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and not the usual shop- till-you-drop fest. 

New York has a wealth of surprises besides retail therapy, and it’s a shame not to explore them. We decided to concentrate on the city’s art.

Our stylish Midtown hotel, Loews Regency, is within easy walking distance of the Museum of Modern Art, where Yoko Ono had invited us to a private tour of her retrospective exhibition. 

The only snag? The tour started before dawn. What followed felt like a dream.

It was beyond surreal to be sheltering under an umbrella at 4.30am, surrounded by hundreds of other people waiting to get in to the event.

Yoko, dressed in her usual black and sporting a hat, was as fresh as a daisy as she guided us around the exhibition, which proved once and for all that as an artist she was years ahead of her time, and is finally getting the recognition she deserves.

Our next target was Art, Garden, Life – an exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s work in the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. 

Lucky! Yoko Ono invited Nina Myskow and her partner Grant to a private tour of her retrospective exhibition

New York has a wealth of surprises besides retail therapy, and it’s a shame not to explore them. So Nina and Grant decided to concentrate on the city’s art

We’d never been to the Bronx before and could have grabbed a cab, but taking the Metro-North Railroad meant an excuse to go to Grand Central Station, a work of art in itself.

After admiring Frida’s wonderful paintings, we took a tram around the garden, ending at the pop-up La Cantina for a prickly pear margarita.

The next morning we set off by subway for the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side to see Gustav Klimt’s Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. 

The painting, which had been looted by the Nazis, was bought for $135 million in 2006 by cosmetics mogul Ronald Lauder, and has been displayed at Neue Galerie ever since. 

I could have gazed at it for hours.

But later that day I had an appointment with an artist of a different kind: hairdresser Lucie in the Julien Farel Salon. 

Everything I’d heard about a New York blow-dry was true: it cost 50 bucks but I left feeling like a million dollars.

On Nina's final day she headed to the new Whitney Museum at the end of the High Line elevated walk in the trendy Meatpacking District - only to discover it is closed on Tuesdays

Dressed in my favourite black dress, I was ready for the awards dinner. And I was so glad I made the effort. 

Meet The Wainwrights, my programme about singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright, won silver, and I left the event clutching a stunning Art Deco-style radio mic trophy.

On our final day we headed to the new Whitney Museum at the end of the High Line elevated walk in the trendy Meatpacking District. 

After spending a few minutes admiring the building designed by Renzo Piano (The Shard in London is also one of his), we noticed the absence of people. 

That’s when we discovered that the museum is closed on Tuesdays.

It was our one failure. No matter. We fell happily into Bubby’s, across the road, and had some delicious food as we soaked up the sunshine – and tried to work out how we were going to fit in my trophy into my suitcase.

Mentioning that again, I realise I’m more like Piers than I thought.