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During your Dallas vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Dallas Museum of Art
Though a substantial notch below a world-class institution, this I. M. Pei-designed museum contains impressive collections of international art, especially from the Americas, Africa, and Asia and the Pacific. The Arts of the Americas section is the largest and most impressive, with valuable contributions from pre-Columbian lost civilizations of the Aztec, Maya, and Nazca peoples and Spanish colonial arts. The more limited Art of Europe gallery exhibits a handful of works by the biggies -- van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Degas -- while the small 20th-century collection includes Picasso, Mondrian, and Giacometti, among others. The contemporary collection includes works by Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, the Texan Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns. In the Wendy & Emery Reves Collection is a curious re-creation of Coco Chanel's French summer home, complete with her collection of furnishings and paintings by French Impressionists like Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Degas. The DMA puts on interesting occasional shows, such as the recent, colorful "Day of the Dead" installation and the blockbuster "Splendors of China's Forbidden City" exhibit. In the atrium, where jazz combos play for free on Thursday evenings, hangs a gorgeous, monumental blown-glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly. A couple of hours should be sufficient, unless you're a dedicated art hound.
Fair Park
Fair Park, a classic conglomeration of Art Deco buildings and spacious grounds built for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, is undergoing a renaissance. Built to commemorate the Republic of Texas's independence from Mexico, it is the only intact and unaltered, pre-1950s world's fair site in the United States. Recognized as a National Historic Landmark for its architecture (the only such landmark in Dallas), Fair Park is an attraction year-round, but especially so during the annual State Fair of Texas (last weekend of Sept and first 3 weeks of Oct), which just celebrated its 50th year.The 277-acre grounds include several museums and performance and sporting facilities like the State Fair Coliseum, Cotton Bowl, Fair Park Bandshell, and Starplex Amphitheater, one of the city's top concert venues. The two major areas are the Esplanade and the Lagoon. There's much to see and do at Fair Park, so depending on your time, you may have to pick and choose. Plan on 2 or 3 hours minimum, and a full day during the State Fair of Texas. Below are the highlights:The Women's Museum, 3800 Parry Ave. (tel. 214/915-0860; www.thewomensmuseum.org), is a huge coup for Dallas. The pet project of a trio of Texas women and designed by Wendy Joseph, the chief designer behind the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., this exciting $25-million museum is an ambitious, high-tech architectural feast, audacious enough to encompass the accomplishments of women over the past century.The museum presents two dozen mostly interactive exhibits, with a clear predilection for engaging the visitor with technological wizardry. Audio guides (handheld cellphones) feature the voices of "mentors" Connie Chung, Gladys Knight, and the former Texas governor Ann Richards. "It's Amazing" is a glass labyrinth of female stereotypes, behind which are revealed several women who defied convention; "Mothers of Invention" showcases popular inventions by women (such as Liquid Paper, conceived by a Dallas secretary, and the brown paper bag). The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students ages 13 to 18, and $3 for children ages 5 to 12.The Hall of State, 3939 Grand Ave. (tel. 214/421-4500; www.hallofstate.com; open Tues-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm), is the centerpiece and principal Art Deco legacy at Fair Park. Inside is a Texan's dream, the Hall of Heroes, with larger-than-life (as any Texan will tell you they were in real life) stalwarts of the Republic of Texas, including Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. Venture into the four-story-high Great Hall, yet more proof that bigger is always better in Texas.Trains evoke nostalgic feelings of travel and exploration in just about everyone; the collection at the Age of Steam Railroad Museum, 1105 Washington St. (tel. 214/428-0101; www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com), including 28 locomotives, steam-era Pullman passenger cars, and Dallas's oldest surviving train depot, is sure to feed such impulses in visitors of all ages. The entry in the "Bigger in Texas" sweepstakes? Big Boy, the world's largest steam locomotive. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm; admission is $5 for adults, $2.50 for children.The African American Museum, 3536 Grand Ave. (tel. 214/565-9026; www.aamdallas.org), is the only museum in the Southwest (and one of eight in the country) that focuses on the African-American experience and culture. The standout exhibit is the fine collection of African-American folk art, supplemented by a survey of African art objects and contemporary African-American art. Admission is free; it's open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 5pm, Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and Sunday from 1 to 5pm.The small but diverse collection of marine life at the Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park, 1300 Cullum Blvd. (tel. 214/670-8443), highlights some of the weirder aquatic specimens in the marine and freshwater world, including walking fish, four-eyed fish, upside-down jellyfish, and desert fish. And who can resist watching the piranhas and sharks being fed? The newest and largest addition is the Amazon Flooded Forest, a 10,000-gallon tank with 30 species from the Amazon River. The aquarium is open daily from 9am to 4:30pm; admission is $3 for adults, $1.50 for children ages 3 to 11.The Dallas Museum of Natural History, 3535 Grand Ave. (tel. 214/421-3466; www.dallasdino.org), is the place to view the kind of wildlife that roamed Texas before steers and longhorns: namely, dinosaurs. Permanent exhibits include "Paleontology Lab" and "Prehistoric Texas." The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm, Sunday from noon to 5pm; admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, $5 for students ages 13 to 18, and $4 for children ages 3 to 12. Parking is free.The Science Place & Planetarium/IMAX Theater, 1313 2nd Ave. (tel. 214/428-5555; www.scienceplace.org; open Tues-Fri 9:30am-4:30pm, Sat 9:30am-5:30pm, Sun 11:30am-5:30pm), is a great place to entertain the kids with more than 300 hands-on science exhibits -- where they can amaze themselves by lifting a half-ton with one hand and playing with electricity -- and the massive, domed IMAX theater. The Planetarium features stargazing shows Monday through Saturday.
Meadows Museum of Art
On the campus of Southern Methodist University is one of the city's best-kept secrets: the finest collection of Spanish art outside Spain (so significant, in fact, that it spent much of 2000 on display at the top-tier Thyssen-Bornemisza museums in Madrid and Barcelona). A Dallas oil magnate, Algur Meadows, went to Spain to search for oil, entertaining himself at the Prado Museum. He came up dry, but his sojourn into Spanish art history bore fruit: Meadows began to assemble a splendid collection of works from the 15th to 20th centuries, including pieces by Spanish masters from the Golden Age of Spanish painting (such as Velázquez, Goya, Ribera, Murillo, Zurbarán -- just about the only big name missing is El Greco). Having moved into a new building six times larger than the old site, Meadows Museum is one of the best small museums with a singular focus in the U.S. Of special note among the nearly 700 items on display are Ribera's Retrato de un Caballero de Santiago and Goya's El Corral de los Locos (by many accounts the finest Goya found in the United States), as well as a series of 200 works on paper by Goya. The 20th-century Spanish masters Picasso, Dalí, Miró, and Tàpies are also represented.
Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott Dallas Market Center
Fairfield Inn is Marriott's award winning economy lodging chain featuring clean, convenient, quality accommodations - all for a great value! At the Fairfield Inn and Suites Dallas Market Center, our spacious and attractive guest rooms are equipped with thoughtful amenities including cable television with free HBO premium channel, dedicated work space, free high speed Internet access, iron and board and reach anywhere telephone with dataport and voicemail. Studio suites offer separate living ...
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