So close, so compatible that you can’t visit one without the other! We sent out our writers Mary Moore Mason and Neil Murray explore.
DALLAS AND FORT WORTH, TEXAS
Although they are only 30 miles apart, there was a time when Dallas and Fort Worth saw themselves not as friends but as rivals. Those days are long past – the two big North Texas cities now sing each other’s praises and jointly promote their tourist attractions. You might even call them Sweetheart Cities.
Of course, their respective images are quite different. Big D is seen as a booming, business-focused metroplex, as most famously depicted in the long-running TV soap opera Dallas; Fort Worth sees itself as the laid back ‘City of Cowboys and Culture’.
For an overview of Dallas, soar to the 560ft summit of the landmark Reunion Tower; to do the same for Fort Worth, visit the colourful Stockyards area, with its twice-daily parade of longhorn cattle, and the city’s various western-themed museums.
Where but in Dallas would you find the famous Dallas Cowboys NFL team playing in the world’s largest domed structure, The AT&T Stadium, and where but in Fort Worth, Billy Bob’s Texas, the ‘world’s largest honky tonk’.
THINGS THE TWO CITIES HAVE IN COMMON:
GREAT ARTS DISTRICTS
The Dallas Arts District, covering 19 city blocks, is the largest contiguous urban arts district in the USA, and among the Fort Worth Cultural District stars is the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
US PRESIDENTIAL SITES
Both cities are associated with John F Kennedy, Dallas with its impressive, deeply-moving Sixth Floor Museum and Fort Worth with a statue of JFK in front of the Hilton Hotel where he spent his last night; the city’s Bass Performance Hall also staged the world premiere earlier this year of the opera, JFK. And Dallas is also home to the George W Bush Presidential Library & Museum.
A REVITALISED TRINITY RIVER WATERFRONT
In Dallas, around the new pedestrian Ronald Kirk Bridge and nearby Trinity Grove restaurant area; in Fort Worth, in a number of areas including Panther Island, offering urban living spaces, restaurants, bars, live entertainment and water- and land-sports opportunities.
POPULAR PUBLIC SPACES – Fort Worth has buzzy Sundance Square, named for the Sundance Kid, who, with his bank-robbing buddy Butch Cassidy, frequented the area. For Dallas, it’s Klyde Warren Park, built over a motorway alongside the Arts District.
SUPER SHOPPING
In Dallas head for downtown’s signature Neiman Marcus store and, farther afield, for the huge Galleria Dallas and NorthPark malls; in Fort Worth, check out the Stockyards’ Western wear emporiums.
MINNEAPOLIS AND SAINT PAUL
Minneapolis and Saint Paul
Nestled side-by-side only ten miles apart on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, these two Minnesota cities are definitely fraternal not identical twins. As the home of the majestic State Capitol and massive Cathedral of St Paul, modelled after St Peter’s in Rome, older Saint Paul is the more-stately of the two; with its high-rise buildings and cutting-edge art and theatre scene, Minneapolis is the trendier city.
Saint Paul’s history, however, is far from sedate – during the early-20th-century Prohibition era it was awash with rum runners, other gangsters and their molls. Their legacy is showcased in the exhibits in the impressive 1902 Landmark Center and the atmospheric Wabasha Street Caves, site of an infamous speakeasy.
Minneapolis, on the other hand, has a rich music heritage. The First Avenue nightclub was one of Prince’s favourite venues, and you can take tours of his Paisley Park home and recording studio in nearby Chanhassen. There’s also a giant, 160-ft wide mural of Bob Dylan, who studied in Minneapolis for a year, on a wall along the Nicollet Mall pedestrianised area.
THINGS THE TWO CITIES HAVE IN COMMON:
STATUES TO THEIR FAMOUS FORMER RESIDENTS
An exuberant manifestation of Mary Tyler Moore, star of TV’s 1970s blockbuster Mary Tyler Moore Show, is found in the Minneapolis visitor information centre; Saint Paul’s Rice Park is filled with tributes to the Peanuts characters created by cartoonist Charles M Schulz, and nearby is a statue of The Great Gatsby author F Scott Fitzgerald.
A VIBRANT PERFORMING AND VISUAL ARTS SCENE
Boasting one of the largest number of theatre seats in the USA, Minneapolis is particularly known for its Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater, co-founded by the UK’s own Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and its outstanding Walker Art Center and adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, filled with such stunners as the playful Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje von Bruggen. Add to these Saint Paul’s Minnesota Museum of American Art.
A LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
Take a narrated Padelford Riverboats cruise and visit Minneapolis’s riverfront Mill City Museum, which explains how river power turned the city into a flour-producing industrial hub.
STAYING OVERNIGHT: Among the numerous options: Downtown Dallas’s elegant Joule, Fort Worth’s Stockyards Hotel, and Saint Paul’s Mississippi riverboat-sited Covington Inn B&B.
DINING OUT: Options range from great barbecue places and trendy food trucks to award-winning haut cuisine establishments and such unique hangouts as Minneapolis’s Mickey’s Diner, a 1939 film-set favourite that looks like a railroad dining car.
