A Dallas Walkabout, Dallas, Texas

In between my fabulous foreign adventures, I occasionally travel for business. In that rare happenstance, especially when I find myself in a place completely new to me, I try to carve out a bit of time to explore.

Right before Porto, my destination for a good portion of a work week was Dallas, Texas. The full meeting schedule allowed me to catch the last couple of hours of sunlight in the Downtown Historic District on one of the days. Of course, I did not have my trusted big camera with me, and it has been well established on these pages that I am neither too willing nor an awfully able photographer when only equipped with a smartphone. Nonetheless, pictures had to be taken, and thus here is a minimal sampler of Dallas sights (and my first-ever travel entry built entirely with smartphone pictures).

My walking circuit started and ended at the Reunion Tower, whose 470-foot-high observation deck offers panoramic views of the city. Northeast of it lies the City Center District - the main cluster of skyscrapers of Dallas.

In the lower left of that perspective is one of the most impressive buildings in town - the Old Red Courthouse, a late 19th-century masterpiece.

In all other directions, the landscape looks perfectly flat and mostly bereft of eye-catching features, a couple of bridges notwithstanding. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).