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    Houston-Gone Hogg Wild

    • zabelle from Portland
    • January 17, 2007
    RienziMore Photos
    We made our base in the Heights and I have to tell you this is the perfect place to get just about anywhere in the city. Our bed and Breakfast was on Heights Blvd and this is a neighborhood that is convenient to everything.

    There are so many fun and interesting things to do in Houston that even though we had three days we couldn’t do everything we would have liked to do. Keep in mind that on Mondays many of the museums will be closed.

    We began Monday morning by heading to LaPorte to see the San Jacinto Monument and Museum. This is an excellent place to get a good overview of the events that led to the independence of Texas from Mexico. The Alamo is perhaps the most famous of the battle sites in Texas but San Jacinto is the most significant. It was here that the Texans (who by the way were of both American and Spanish decent) beat the Mexicans under their President General Santa Ana. He was taken prisoner and forced to write a document leading to a cease fire and eventually to independence. The monument is over 500 feet tall and offers a very nice view of the surrounding countryside.

    After leaving here we headed into Houston to Glenwood Cemetery where some of the significant former residents of Houston are buried. Among the graves that we were in particular looking for were that of the screen actress Gene Tierney and also the billionaire Howard Hughes. Stop by the cemetery office to get a map because it is a large cemetery and without the map you will have a very hard time finding Howard Hughes, he is as reclusive in the after life and he was during his lifetime.

    Houston is the home to two very fine collection of decorative arts. Bayou Bend the former home of Ima Hogg has an absolutely astonishing collection of mostly American furniture, porcelain, silver and pewter and of course art. Some of the earliest porcelain and pottery are European because her goal was to exactly replicate what the times dictated. The people of these particular times would have used European objects to decorate so she does also. Her gardens are also worthy of a visit.

    . ${QuickSuggestions} Rienzi, the former home of Harris and Carroll Masterson has been converted into a museum of European Decorative arts. They have a collection that’s covers Medieval to early 20th century object d’art and wonderful works of art by artist such as Romney, Gainsborough and Wright of Derby. They also have fine furniture, sculpture and a fantastic collection of Worcester porcelain. They even have a piece of Catherine the Greats Sevres service.
    Both of these houses are part of theFine Arts Museum,Houston and of course no visit would be complete without a stop at the mother ship. We entered through the Wiess Building and then went through the Tunnel (which is a piece of art) to the Beck Building. The store and the Café are both in the Beck Building. We thoroughly enjoyed the collection that was on display however, they are getting ready for an Impressionist Exhibit and have taken down all their old masters. Why you would want to leave your Impressionists up and take down the old masters when you have an Impressionist Exhibit coming in is beyond us, it makes them a one pony show but anyway no Rembrandt for us.
    The Heritage Society has a museum on the history of Houston that was also closed while they change exhibits but they were still giving tours of their houses in Sam Houston park. These run the gamut from a rustic 1820's cabin to an oil barons’s mansion. We took the guided tour and actually went inside four of the houses.


    Menil Collectionoffers an extensive collection of modern art supplemented by Antiquities from Greece, Asia Minor and Africa. There are also Medieval and Renaissance artifacts from Europe. Other rooms contain items from Polynesia and Alaska. The Rothko Chapel at another location is alos part of their collection and can be visited everyday.

    I did a lot of research before I went to Houston. Here is a list of the sites I used.

    Houston CVB
    www.visithoustontexas.com

    Houston guide
    www.houston-guide.com

    Houston City Tourist
    www.houstoncitytourist.com

    We go places
    www.wegoplaces.com

    houston world web
    www.houstonwebworld.com

    metro
    www.houstonmetro.harris.tx.us
    A day pass is $2.
    ${BestWay} Houston is served by two international airports, George Bush Field and Hobby International. Since we use Southwest airlines whenever possible we flew into Hobby. Hobby is located to the south of the city. There is a ring road that surrounds the city and it makes it relatively easy to circle around.

    There are also freeways that cut across the city from north to south #45 and east to west . We used the freeway to get from the airport to Laporte where the San Jacinto Monument is and then to get back into Houston so we could visit Glenwood Cemetery. After that we didn’t ever use the Freeway again until we were heading up to Dallas. Local streets are easy to maneuver if you have a basic map and as I previously stated we never had any problem with traffic.

    Parking was never an issue for us either and we drove our rental minivan right downtown. For the Heritage Society we parked for free in their own parking lot. For the Houston Art Museum we used the parking lot across the street from the Weisse building. Rienzi and Bayou Bend have their own parking as does the Menil.

    I am going to recommend that you get a rental car but I am also going to strongly recommend that you don’t use Dollar. They charged us $105 for an extra driver and tried to talk us into upgrading the car, we had ordered a compact. When I refused they told us we had to choose either a minivan or a full size SUV because that was all they had. Cute hah, they were hoping I would want to upgrade so they could charge me more when they didn’t even have the car I had ordered, it’s a long way from a compact to a minivan. The bill still came out higher than I contracted for and I am very unhappy not to mention the difference in mileage between the car I ordered and what I got. This was the first time I have ever used them and will definitely be the last. We also got a real hard sell on the extra insurance which we didn’t want and didn’t accept.
    From journal Houston-Gone Hogg Wild