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Continental Airlines Flights from Washington (IAD) to Houston (IAH)
Orbitz is pleased to offer airline tickets on Continental Airlines, which operates a daily non-stop flight from Washington (IAD) to Houston (IAH) regularly scheduled to depart at 12:25pm and arrive at 2:45pm, and 3 additional non-stop flights, departing between 6:00am and 5:51pm on select days of the week. Usually an Embraer RJ is flown for this route. The average travel time from Washington, DC to Houston, TX is 3 hours and 24 minutes.
During your Houston vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Contemporary Arts Museum
This silver-aluminum parallelogram, located on the corner of Montrose and Bissonnet cater-cornered to the Fine Arts Museum, presents temporary exhibitions of modern art and design. It has no permanent collection; what you might find here is purely the luck of the draw. When I go to the Fine Arts Museum, I always stick my head into the CAM to see what's going on because it's right across the street and it's free.
Kemah Boardwalk
Many visitors to Space Center Houston (see review below) will afterward go out for seafood at nearby Kemah, which is as touristy as the Houston area gets. It used to be a rustic shrimping port on Galveston Bay where you could buy some shrimp and a beer and sit by the dock on an afternoon to watch the shrimp boats come in. Most of the pier was washed away in 1984 by a hurricane, and in the 1990s it was bought by a developer who built the boardwalk, several restaurants, a hotel, and some touristy stores and attractions. The restaurants overlook the water; if you stroll down the boardwalk you'll pass every one. Pick the one that most appeals to you. Among the attractions is a 50,000-gallon, floor-to-ceiling aquarium housing more than 100 species of tropical fish in the Aquarium Restaurant.
Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park
A couple of blocks from Houston's visitor center is this park, which serves as a repository for eight of Houston's oldest houses and buildings, moved here from their original locations. The oldest dates from before Texas's Independence; it is a small, simple cabin originally built close to where NASA is today. Another house was built by a freed slave in 1870. There's a church dating from 1892. The Heritage Society restored them to their original state and furnished them with pieces from the appropriate eras. The only way to see these buildings is by guided tour, which leaves every hour on the hour from the tour office at 1100 Bagby; it takes about 45 minutes. The guides are well informed and add a lot to a visit here. The Heritage Museum can be visited without taking the tour. It's free and features permanent exhibits on Texas history.
Make your reservations for discount hotel rooms in the
Houston area, including:
Lancaster Hotel
For those who enjoy the performing arts and nightlife, there is no better place to stay in Houston. Within 1 block are the symphony, the ballet, the opera, and the Alley Theatre, and when reserving a room you can have the concierge buy tickets for performances at any of these venues as well as others in the Theater District. Also a block away is Bayou Place, where you can catch a movie or a live blues or rock act, and within a few blocks are many restaurants and clubs. The hotel occupies a small 12-story building that dates from the 1920s and looks all the smaller for being near the Chase Tower (the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi). Rooms are a little smaller than their counterparts at the Four Seasons but better furnished, and with more of the character of an old hotel. Bathrooms are ample and have lots of counter space. Service is excellent and includes lots of personal touches.
Houston Airport Marriott
Don't let the address fool you -- this hotel is not on "Hotel Row." It's located smack-dab in the middle of the airport itself between terminals B and C, and it's on the airport tram line, which means no messing with taxis, shuttle buses, or rental cars. With this enviable location, the hotel gets a lot of business conferences. The revolving rooftop restaurant adds to the hotel's popularity -- you'll see planes landing and taking off with a view that is pretty much the same as that of the airport's control tower. Guest rooms at the hotel are large and attractively furnished. The bathrooms are not particularly big, but the beds are comfortable, and everything else about the rooms is great. The revolving rooftop restaurant is a lovely place for dinner, which is served from 5:30 to 10pm (open for lunch to groups only).
La Colombe d'Or
If you enjoy the smallness of scale of a B&B and the fact that the rooms don't look like hotel rooms, but you want more space, in-room dining, and more privacy, this is the hotel for you. The five suites are extremely large, with hardwood floors, area rugs, antiques, king-size beds, and large bathrooms. Some suites come with separate dining rooms, and the in-room service, from either the bar or the restaurant, is one of the things this hotel is known for. The penthouse is more than twice as large as any of the suites and offers a lot of open space, a bar, a study, and a parlor. The mansion that the hotel occupies was built in the 1920s for oilman Walter Fondren. The interior has some beautiful architectural features, and its location puts you close to museums, restaurants, and the downtown area.
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