DFW - Dallas Forth Worth, Texas

In July 2017 I happened to go to Texas, Dallas & Austin to be precise on business i.e. to visit clients for some meetings and work for a month and half. I took Emirates Mumbai - Dubai - Dallas (DFW) flight. The second leg is one of the longest flights of 15 hours on a wide-bodied Boeing 777-ER plane. Landed at DFW (Dallas - Fort Worth) in the morning around 11AM and taxied to Extended Stay very to the client's office in the North Dallas area. Got a taste of American stick to the rule book when I was told that check-in will happen only at 3PM and had to sit out for 2 hours! Anyhow the lodging was decent.

During the week, just walked to the office and to nearby Chipotle or other eateries nearby. I don’t drive in the US so walking or public transport or can is the only option. Dallas is spread out and is known to be not walkable. The chance to venture out happened on the first weekend. Took DART from Forest Lane station was a mile long walk. From there took the Red/Orange line to Westend which is Dallas downtown.

DART to DFW

The station is located in the historical heritage district which has red brick builds and same brick cobbled streets.

Historic district with vintage ride

Historic District

I looked up Dallas tours and found a Dallas City tour which starts from JFK memorial Plaza. John Frederick Kennedy (JFK), one of the most charismatic US Presidents, has the unfortunate connection to Dallas having been assassinated in the most sensational manner possible. The city tour for 2 hours was mostly about JFK than about Dallas. The bus was a minibus painted with JFK and the other identity of Texas being Cowboys and Rodeo.

Dallas City Tour bus

They had a video with a program mostly about JFK. First the bus took us around Dallas downtown pointing out main attractions like the Art Museum and First Baptist church.

Dallas Museum of Art

We stopped at The Pioneer Plaza which has bronze sculptures of Cowboy and the longhorn cattle. The longhorn is due to the size and shape of horns on the cattle. The sculptures were impressive.

Cowboy sculpture

Cattle sculpture

The Downtown had tall impressive buildings of banks and companies. There is also an impressive 30-feet model of the human eye which seemed so real with blood vessels and striations in Iris.

Dallas downtown

Dallas eye

From here on started the story of JFK. We first visited Dealey Plaza which is a 6-storey red brick building on whose 6th floor Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John Frederick Kennedy while he was being driven in an open car on Elm street amid all the fanfare with people lining the street. This may be one of the macabre assassination which was caught on camera where one could see bullet blowing off JFK’s head. The Dealey Plaza has been declared a monument of national importance. There is a X on Elm street exactly as the spot where the bullet hit JFK.

JFK Memorial Plaza

Dealy Plaza

Spot of assassination

From here we drove all the way to 1026 N. Beckley Street in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas where Lee Oswald Harvey, the assassin of JFK lived temporarily. The house is now a memorial for JFK with original preserved newspapers of the next day. The tour guide enthusiastically spoke about the entire JFK assassination episode. They also passed by another spot where Oswald shot a police officer before being captured at nearby Movie Theatre.

Newspaper of that time

Lee Oswald Harvey house

There is extensive literature on assassination, its motive and subsequent murder of Oswald. On return the video in the bus showed eerie trivia about similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy’s life and death both of whom were presidents who have been assassinated. Overall I felt that amused obsession of this tour with JFK and his assassin and drawing comparison to Lincoln.

I came to know that Dallas has a heritage streetcar called M-line Trolley. I came back again next day to Dallas downtime getting down at Cityplace/Uptown where the M-line connects DART. The ride was pleasant and mostly had joyriders like me. The ride is free on M-line.

M-line Trolley

M-line Trolley

M-line Trolley

From there went to Klyde Warren park which was flocked by a lot of people. It had a walking path, fountains and a bar to have drinks. The M-line streetcar also served the park.

DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) is a Metroplex, a twin city. Sometimes referred to as Cowtown, it is by far closer to its cowboy roots than neighbouring Dallas. It has historic Stock Yards which used to be the hub of livestock or cattle industry in old times.

Fort Worth Stockyards

Photo-op with longhorn

The stock yards still have pends, barns to hold cattle with some cattle kept for display. There is a guided tour which takes tourists through all that is there to see and its history. Apart from tours, there are shows like Rodeo where cowboys hear cattle and display their rope skill to catch cattle by their horns or legs conducted in an arena called Coliseum. Then there were a couple of cowboys who set up a cart displaying the old ways of cowboys living on the move

Sculpture in Stockyards

Cowboy life

Rodeo

Stockyard station

where one could also try some of the rope tricks. Then there are restaurants in the Stockyards station building. In the evening, the Grapevine Railroad train with its massive engine came all the way inside.

4th of July is Independence Day in the USA and a public holiday. US cities have a tradition of public fireworks to celebrate independence day. For Dallas it was to happen at Cotton Bowl stadium in Fair park. There was an actual fair there with Ferris wheel, cable car rides, food stalls and other attractions. After savouring them all made their way to the stadium seating. The fireworks happened outside the stadium in a designated direction so all were seated in half facing the fireworks. There was a small band and music to keep the audience entertained till the fireworks. Eventually the fireworks started with a countdown around 8 PM and lasted for 20 minutes or so. At the upper edge of seating one could witness not just the fireworks but the Dallas downtown with buildings all lit up. It was an amazing experience.

Ferris Wheel Fairpark

Cotton Bowl stadium

Crowd gathered to watch fireworks

I happened to travel a bit in Dallas and found it to be quintessential American city with huge construction of buildings, multi-level flyovers, huge parking spaces and long distances, break from Newyork or Bay Area. Later came to know about a trivia is Dallas has more shopping area per capita in entire US. One of the people I met lamented that they are staying in a one big shopping mall!

Belgium

Belgium
Today we took train from Amsterdam and came to Brussels Midi. The train was Thalys which along with Intercity Express (ICE) and TGV is the another high-speed train company. We witnessed confusion over which is our coach and seat and same with other passengers. So much for high speed that coach number were not marked on coach or on platform. The interiors of the train were all red which was gaudy. We got down at Brussels-MIDI station. We took a cab which had to go around a lot where our hotel was located due to Donald Trump's visit on that particular day to Brussels. Cab dropped us close to hotel where road was blocked. We then lugged our luggage to hotel.

Our train to Brussels

Red Interiors

After check-in we walked to Grand Place which is center of Brussels. To go there we had to pass in front of Royal Palace of Brussels which is palace of the monarchy of Belgium. We had bought Brussels city card which came with free entry to museums which we utilised by visiting Palais du Coudenberg which is adjacent to Royal palace. Apart from exhibits depicting history of Belgium, in the underground it has medieval palace foundations with excavations on display.

Bus stop signage

Royal Palace

Brussels Museum

From there we passed Mont des Arts park which was beautiful and came to district housing Grand Place. There are several other museums around this location and each building is a gorgeous to look at. Grand Place is a huge city square completely encircled by elegant historic buildings dating back to the 14th century. These buildings house city hall which has a tall tower, museum, restaurants and eateries and shops on the ground floor.

Brussels historic district

Mont des Arts park overlooking the grand place tower

Mont des Arts park

Going towards Grand place

Street signs

Going towards Grand place square

Huge galleria

At Grand place square

Historic buildings at Grand place

Close by is Manneken Pis which is a bronze statue of naked boy literally pissing i.e. water flowing out of private part, of course it is provided by a water pipe. Somehow it has become a huge attraction over a period and there was huge crowd to take picture. There is so much obsession with this statue that its replica is everywhere including a statue made of chocolate in waffle shops!

Mannekin Pis

replica

Belgium is famous for Chocolates, Waffles, Fritters. There were plenty of shops selling Belgian chocolates, fritters, waffles. The waffle stores were overflowing with hundreds of types of toppings they came with. We just tasted a simple waffle which was good and filling. We also tried fritters from a shop called Belgian frites. Belgium is where Tin Tin comics originated. I have never read them but I heard they are very good. A friend asked me to buy a souvenir and there is only one store in the main area which I passed by thinking I will buy in the evening. But when I came back, it was closed. No other shop had any TinTin souvenir.

Tintin Exclusive Store

Waffle ship with numerous toppings

Belgian fritters

Next we decided to go to Atomium which is a huge metal structure formed like an Iron molecule structure with atoms as the vertices. Its a strange edifice. It was originally constructed for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58). The edges of structure house escalators and vertices have exhibition rooms. There was lot of interesting exhibits inside with sprawling view of Brussels city from all sides. We took Brussels metro to go there. It was quite hot in the afternoon and we had to wait in queue for a while before we could go upstairs due to crowd. The edifice was old and had limited capacity in lift or upstairs but the vision & design was marvellous which stands today as one of the main attractions after 60 years.

Atomium

View from Atomium

View from Atomium

Inside Atomium

Endless escalators

From Atomium we took the tram and came back to Grand place. The place has come alive in the evening with some musicians doing live performance on streets and general gathering of tourists and locals. We hung around for a while before returning to our hotel.

Ghent, Bruges
Next day we had full day tour of medieval city of Ghent and Brugges which are west of Brussels. While planning we were keen to visit Antwerp which is another important town of Belgium but we had skip it. We had booked this tour as well on viator and we had to come to Grand Place to board our bus. Our guide was a gentleman who narrated entire historical significance of the towns. We first arrived at Ghent. Ghent is situated at the confluence of the Leie and Scheldt rivers. During the Middle Ages it was a prominent city. In the 18th & 19th century it got rich due to textile industry. Today it’s a university town and cultural hub. Attractions near city center include a row of guildhalls called Grslei, 12-century castle Gravensteen, Belfry tower, a UNESCO heritage and other beautiful buildings. Ghent also had a ring of canals which reminded of Amsterdam but it wasn't that grand.

Canal around buildings

Built in 1669

 

Gravensteen

Street scene

Belfry tower

Bruges is another medieval town with city center as UNESCO heritage site. It is distinguished by its canals, cobbled streets and medieval buildings. We arrived at Bruges at lunch time. Our guide took us inside the town and we had our lunch at a restaurant. We could already see the beautiful old building and criss-crossing canals and boats carrying tourists. After that we went on a small walking tour of the town on the cobbled streets finally emerging at Markt area. It is a square with two prominent buildings Belfry which is a bell-tower and City Hall with lot of activities including a traditional horse-cart ferrying tourists. We finally went for boat ride through the canals. The canals criss-cross the town and there are several pedestrian arched bridges for boats to go through. The buildings were red-bricked with sloping red-tiled roofs with stepped-edges with hanging flowering plants or creepers. The boat ride was quite enjoyable.

Gorgeous canals with ducks

General scene at Brugges overflowing with tourists

Canal busy with tourist boats

Canals busy with tourist boats

Belfry at Markt square

Scene at Markt square

Rows of medieval buildings

We left the town and headed back to Brussels which we reached in 1.5 hours and we again headed back to Grand Place. Today there was huge crowd due to a Jazz performance which was going to take place. At sunset just before dark, the buildings around were subtly illuminated in different hues which made them look beautiful.

Buildings illuminated at Grand place

Jazz performance at Markt square

On the last day we also purchased few Belgian chocolates for family & friends. That brought end to our Belgium trip.