From NASA's famous Space Center to country music, cowboy boots and Creole cooking, there is so much going on in Houston that you will have to come back again to fit it all in. Weekends in Houston allow you marvel at collections of world class contemporary art and ancient artefacts. Relax at one of the city's vast parks, kick up your knees at a summer music festival or go shopping at one of the many malls that are pumped full of oil money. Houston is the ideal home of the modern cowboy. Houston is a city of vast proportions and diverse cultural attractions as varied as ancient dinosaur bones and space travel.
It is straightforward to book flights and hotels in Houston from the UK. Direct flights from Dublin to Houston run regularly as do flights from Cork to Houston. Connections between downtown Houston and the airport are strong, so navigating the city is easy. US dollars can be purchased at favourable rates. Texas is six hours behind the UK (GMT-6).
Sweltering summer weather means that February to April and September and November are the most pleasant times to visit Houston. You will find affordable hotels in the city throughout the year but spring and autumn are blessed with a variety of festivals. Residents disperse to cooler climes come summer, making key attractions quieter than at other times of the year. Houston's winters are also temperate, though temperatures fall at night.
Where else in the world can you be transported to the moon and back in a single afternoon? Houston is home to myriad attractions, of which the following are notable highlights:
Wonder at a 2000 carat blue topaz at the Museum of Natural Science. The collection also includes giant dinosaur skeletons and prehistoric cave paintings. A number of Egyptian mummies have also found their way here. Children are enthralled by the interactive exhibits, not to mention the IMAX cinema and butterfly conservatory.
Transcend the stress of modern life by gazing into Rothko's subtle colour fields, which fill the viewer's entire visual field. Sitting peacefully in the famous Rothko Chapel, it's impossible not to be affected by these fourteen paintings, housed within a remarkable brutalist building amid verdant gardens.
The left-handed graphisms of Cy Twombly's wobbly paintings arrest your attention when you stop by the Menil Collection. Seventeen thousand artifacts and artworks are housed inside a modernist building, spanning objects that date from 3000 BC and works by Magritte and Kara Walker.
Creole cooking is big in Houston, where chicken is on the menu, alongside shrimp, crawfish, gumbo and jambalaya. Start your daily feasting with a breakfast taco from Laredo Taqueria. Frank's Americana Revival famously serves chicken fried steak. The Cajun Kitchen's crawfish is served smothered in butter and Thai basil. Ninfa's serves sizzling fajitas and claims to have introduced the world to them. Killen's Barbecue is famous for its barbecue brisket, which quivers pinkly between its charred edges.
Oil money is freely spent in glittering malls in Houston. Texas National Outfitters has its own live music stage, plus plenty of Texan spirits to sell. Grab your cowboy attire at Cavender's Boot City, which sells cowboy hats and glittering belt buckles. For broken in boots, walk on over to Lower Westheimer, where second hand shops cluster. If custom boots are more your style, Tejas Custom Boots is your place. Pinto Ranch sells saddles and jewellery among other items.