Houston - more than just rockets

A packed and interesting day in Houston started at 8:30 am - after a pretty restless night - and ended around 9 pm. Fortunately we didn't have to drive, but were comfortably driven around, well fed and pampered. On a sunny, hot day, we started our visit with the George Ranch Historical Park (see pics), a green and idyllically situated living history site. Old farm buildings from different periods show visitors how the first settlers in the region lived and worked.

Back to Downtown with it's great skyline we had lunch at The Grove, a very creative, top-restaurant close-by Discovery Green Park. In the last years downtown was enormously revitalized with parks like this one or Buffalo Bayou, close to the fantastic Theater District. Open-air concerts and events of different kind take place, food trucks row up and there is always something going on now.

Tejas Custom Boots, our next stop - a long-time famous Texas bootmaker - had really nice boots, but unfortunately it was not his day to talk to german journalists...

The Houston Museum of Natural Science is part of the Houston Museum District and adjacent to Hermann Park. It's a concentration of world-class museums. We've visited most of them during previous visits, with the exception of the Science Museum. Especially the Hall of Paleontology is an absolutely worth-seeing museum on its own, prehistoric creatures and dinosaurs in abundance! And there is lots more to see!


After having seen a lot of bones and stones and mummies we were ready for some excellent brews at Saint Arnold Brewery (Texas' oldest craft brewery founded in 1994). After the instructive tour we had a tasting and got confirmation of our opinion, that in the meantime many American beers are much better than German ones. Loved their IPAs and their special rum-barrel-aged dark desert beer.

In heavy rush hour traffic it took us almost 1,5 hours to get to our final highlight of the day: Kemah Boardwalk. It's half-way in the direction of Galveston and the port of Houston, on the oceanfront, about 15 min. away from the Space Center. Thanks to perfect planning we just made it in time for the sunset and after exploring the boardwalk rides and attractions we enjoyed our first steak in Texas at Saltgrass Steakhouse.

Houston is a crazy city: very spread out, lots of driving involved, heavy traffic almost all the time. Nevertheless, it's one of these cities you either love or hate and we got to love it in the course of time since it has such a great variety of different attractions, museums and neighborhoods, lots of greenery, great architecture and a very creative culinary (and beer) scene. Also, a big plus of this city is it's Southern hospitality, people being very friendly and talkative.