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Irving Arts & Culture Itinerary
With more than 100 live performances occurring nightly throughout the Dallas area, it's easy to find something for everyone - and hard to fit it all in! This sample itinerary is just a means to get you started with galleries and museums during the day, elegant and unique dinners and a wide range of performance venues every night. You'll see the schedule is flexible enough to let you plan a night, a day or a week! And since most everything is indoors, it's a great itinerary to enjoy during the summer, when everything is a brisk air-conditioned 72 degrees inside.
Day 1
Start your afternoon at the spectacular Mustangs of Las Colinas sculpture, one of the world's largest equestrian sculptures and a great backdrop for a souvenir group picture. Then it's off to the Irving Arts Center for a leisurely tour of its galleries and sculpture garden. A weather-friendly day also means it's a good time to explore the Jaycee Park Center for the Arts and its beautiful gardens. After making advance reservations, hop on over to the Jackie Townsell Bear Creek Heritage Center, which tells the history of the Bear Creek community and of the African-American experience from the time of emancipation of the slaves through the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. No museum visit is complete without stopping by the Irving Archives and Museum that tells the story of Irving from its rough pioneer frontier days to the vibrant city it is today. Also, a stop at the Ruth Paine House is in order to help fill in some of the blanks of the JFK assassination story. This historic home has been restored to its 1963 look and opened as a multimedia museum to tell the story of the events that occurred there the night before the assassination. If you're in town on the first Sunday of the month, add Irving's Heritage House Museum to your itinerary to see this Texas Recorded Historical Landmark. Irving is full of history and the arts, you may need more than just one day to experience it all.
Day 2
The Dallas Arboretum is always in bloom, and mornings are a perfect time to enjoy its scenery. Then it's off to downtown Dallas for an up-close look at the cattle drive captured in sculpture at Pioneer Plaza. The Dallas Museum of Art is the next stop, and then it's a trolley ride to McKinney Avenue for antique shopping and gallery strolling. Dinner is a dine-around on the avenue, capped by a nighttime performance at the Meyerson Symphony Center, Winspear Opera House, The Majestic or Fair Park Music Hall theatres.
Day 3
"West" is the theme of the day, with your first stop at the Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art, then the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Fort Worth's Kimbell Art Museum offers a spectacular collection, and a great lunch at its Buffet. Make time to include the new Modern Art Museum; the Amon Carter Museum is next, then it's Fort Worth's turn to show off its greenery with a stop at the Botanic Gardens. Dinner is in Sundance Square, with a show following at Casa Mañana or the Bass Performance Hall.
Day 4
Your morning starts with a tour of the Grapevine wineries complete with wine tastings and vineyard tours. Grapevine has a barrelful of wineries so you don't have to pick just one. Stop by Grapevine's Glockenspiel Clock Tower and watch two 9-foot tall Glockenspiel characters, known as the Would-Be Train Robbers, emerge from the Tower every two hours beginning at 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. There's always good food to be found in Grapevine at local favorites like Esparza's, Winewood Grill or Willhoite's. Then catch a performance at the Grapevine Opry.
AB Variation: