We went on Thanksgiving Day to see a limited engagement showing of the latest Knives Out film. We…read morehad no problem parking or finding the theater. When we got to the ticket counter, they said the movie had been moved to a larger theater because of higher than expected demand, and our seat numbers were changed. I was in "pre-irked" mode, because I had ordered early, and selected specific seats. I was happy to see that they were essentially the same center seats but in a wider row. The seats were comfy, as advertised. After the pleasant non-concern about the seats, I left to go to the concession. However, something about the carpet and the rail made me think that there was an extra step to take, and I tumbled a bit. I had to do the embarrassing "I'm okay, just tripped on my own feet" thing to the audience above. That did not deter me from getting a beer though (yes, my first and only one of the day, I really thought there was a step). However, the taps had just been opened and needed clearing. I think we were the first showing of the day. It gave me plenty of time to talk story with the very young (19 I think) bartender. As any good bartender should, he listened to my woes of being vegan on Thanksgiving. I give thanks for the Landmark Theatre showing a limited engagement film on a holiday! But put some better reflective tape on the steps or something, please!

First time here this weekend. During the last 10 min of the movie the screen froze and it took…read moreabout 10-15min for them to reboot the system after someone went to notify the outside employees. I've only had this happen once before at another theater in fashion square and they have everyone a voucher for a free pop-corn. Nothing from this place. The popcorn is also super salty. UPDATE: Now 1 Star. Went to see 'Weapons' and similar to another reviewer here, the audio was extremely low. Could hardly hear anything including dialogue. Never had that experience before. The projection itself was also very dark like the projector lens was dirty. There were some horizontal white lines running across the screen for the entire movie which also made for a terrible experience. All in all, a terrible place to see a movie. You're better off going elsewhere or staying home.

This was an enchanting work shop/art exhibit north of Scottsdale…read more I didn't expect such a nice arrangement of creative wind chimes that were cast metal and glass. The entire establishment is an art piece with the creator having envisioned the architecture to appear the way it is. The chimes are very expensive mind you. But they are beautiful and they sound terrific. There is a tour and there are classes on how to make the clay tiles, which they also sell. I would come by if you like creative arts. :)

Who knew a Cosanti was located in Paradise Valley! I've always traveled north to Arcosanti located…read morein Mayer to take visitors and purchase gifts. This has a much different vibe than the Mayer location. We were able to watch the Artisans at works, creating the various winches, bells and other metal art. The various rooms look like they were built right into the ground. I also felt the art was more interesting at Cosanti. Make sure you stop in for a tour, read about the history and find some truly unique gifts or decor for your home.

Phoenix is full of history and Heritage Square is one of those places that maintains some of its…read morepast. Heritage Square is home to some preserved 19th and 20th century homes, museums and restaurants. The Rosson House is a beautiful restored 1895 Queen Anne Victorian house that was once home to early settlers in Phoenix. Heritage Square also hosts many food and cultural festivals. There is a large garage nearby for parking and ASU has a small campus next door. The Arizona Science Center is the building that stands out the most here at Historic Heritage Square. I have gone to it a couple of times and have enjoyed my time there. Arizona's most iconic restaurant Pizzeria Bianco by James Beard Award-winner Chris Bianco is also here. It can be a very long wait to get a table and has been visited by many celebrates like Jerry Seinfeld and Jimmy Fallon over the years. Sometimes I will park near Heritage Square while going to a baseball game and like to enjoy its relaxing peaceful atmosphere before the game. There are some shaded areas to take cover on warm sunny days.

The neighborhood boasts a mix of vintage residences from the turn of the century alongside modern…read morebuildings. We recently visited a festival that spanned across the entire square and even spilled out beyond. The location provided an ideal backdrop for such an event.The neighborhood is filled with both historic homes and modern buildings. We recently enjoyed a festival that covered not only the main square but also extended beyond it. It was the ideal location for such an event.

What a wonderful space available downtown Phoenix. Their website does not do justice to the work…read morethey have put in to create a great event space with bar, stage, garden and all amenities. Attended a wedding at Alwun and can say this place is a new favorite event space downtown. Very quiet, picturesque and really takes you away from the hustle and bustle of the downtown environment around Fountain, bar, tables & chairs, stage, covered area and great lighting. Really wonderful in person.

Started First Friday at Alwun House. My first time there and I really enjoyed walking around the…read morerooms of the old house. The art was quite nice with mixed media that was at time part Hellraiser, and part Roman Emperor Caligula. I love to look at art, it focuses my attention as I slow down stop and reflect. Art always challenges one to shift one perspective and muse new ways of thought and bent on life. The patio and outdoor landscape is equal parts calmness with water gently gurgling, koi fish swimming with lush pretty plantings and equal parts First Friday pumping techno bass, food trucks and art stalls. If you haven't been so check out Alwun House, support local businesses and artists!!

On our way from Flagstaff to Phoenix, we stopped at the Meteor Crater Natural Landmark and man -…read morethe sight is incredible! There are other exhibits that you can check out, but the major attraction (the meteor crater) is breathtaking taking and MASSIVE. Pictures do it no justice. If you've can check it out, I highly recommend! The address is: Meteor Crater Natural Landmark, I-40 Exit 233, Winslow, AZ 86047

I absolutely loved visiting AZ with my husband on our anniversary trip. Good thing we went on May…read morebecause it was starting to get hot when we visited. People were nice and very touristy but liked the hike and loved the train rides.

The tour was worth the five year wait/lottery! We had a wonderful docent and received a fantastic…read moretour of Tovrea Castle which was superb in every way possible. I have lived in Arizona, specifically the Phoenix area, for most of my life and have driven by Tovrea Castle thousands of times. It was so cool to be able to walk the grounds and get a peek inside. I would highly suggest entering the lottery, it's free and some people have better luck than I did and can get in sooner than 5 years. This was an insightful tour mixed with great storytelling and history. The basement with all the artifacts of the family and learning more about the area makes me proud to be a part of Arizona! Worth the visit!

If you live in the Valley it's highly likely that you have driven by this place. From the 202 fwy…read moreyou can easily see it. I often wondered what is that building? Finally after passing it so many times I was curious enough to look it up. I googled "cake shaped building PHX" and it was the first result. "Tovrea (said tov-ree) Castle aka A jewel in the Sonoran desert" Since 2010 the City of Phoenix purchased, renovated, and opened it for tours. The very abbreviated story with this place is that some homesteaders from the early 1900s owned the land, sold 277 acres to a wealthy Italian man. Alessio Carraro had built a fortune in the sheet metal business in the 1920s from San Fran. He planned to build a hotel resort surrounded by a housing subdivision on 277 acres, Carraro Heights. The castle was built near the timing of when the Great Depression set in. Carraro wanted out, he sold the castle and some amount of acreage (for a fraction of his investment) to Della Tovrea, wife of cattle baron E.A. Tovrea. She lived there until her tragic death in 1969. Nearby is the Stockyard Restaurant, built by E.A.'s son so cattlemen had somewhere to eat near the stockyards. That restaurant still exists today. I plan to check it out. If you want more details and full story, go take the tour :) however tickets are not easy to come by. Tours sell out many months in advance and they started using a lottery system. I bought my tickets months ago. However worth a try to go. I wouldn't say its the most amazing thing I've ever seen and the use of the word "castle" is a stretch. I've been inside some real castles in US and Europe, however it's interesting and a fun thing to do and it satisfied my curiosity! :) Per their website- The Ticket Lottery for Fall 2022 Tickets has ended and all tickets have been distributed - look for last minute cancellation tickets. Ticket Lottery for Spring 2023 Regular Tours closed on October 15, 2022 and Winners will be notified via email starting November 1, 2022. https://tovreacastletours.com

If you look up the top attractions in Phoenix on TripAdvisor, Dobbins Lookout will be toward the…read moretop of the list. For good reason. Located in South Mountain Park, Dobbins offers picturesque views of Phoenix and surrounding areas. There are two ways to get there: (1) you can take the easy way and take a scenic drive up to a parking lot right next to Dobbins or (2) take Holbert Trail to Dobbins which will be about an hour an a half hike. Naturally, I took the more difficult route and was rewarded for my efforts with all that Dobbins has to offer. You'll see people sitting on the various benches and ledges to enjoy the views. You'll see people snapping pics. And you'll even see vendors in the parking lot selling Native American art and jewelry, drinks, and snacks. While I wasn't there during sunset, I hear it's a spectacular place to come at that time.

Other reviews say it all. Best views of the area and unparalleled sunsets. Good parking; some merch…read moreand jewelry vendors are there. It's not good if you're unsteady on your feet unless you want the views from the parking lots, which aren't bad. Unsteady feet beware. It's not Chiricahua, but it's pretty good and a hairpin corner steep drive. Lots of hiking from easy to over-the-mountains is available. Drive slowly; it's a narrow passage with bad visibility in some areas.

Ok, I'm going to give this place 5 stars because, technically, it is a cool place that not a lot of…read morepeople know about. It's actually a hydroelectric plant along the Arizona Canal. As we approached the building (you can't go in it), the smell hit us and I thought, oh no, I've made a huge mistake. I think I was just there on a bad day or something, because I didn't see many reviews mention the smell at all. What smell? Raw sewage, very sulphur- and trash-like. I mean, it STUNK. It was strongest at the top overlook, right next to the building. As we went down the staircase to the lower level, the smell began to dissipate and eventually, to my nose, disappeared altogether. On the lower level, we saw the waterfalls. You can walk under/behind two of them and there are "seats" made of stone blocks in front of the third. The water was flowing pretty hard the day we visited, so the seats and all the pavement was wet and there was a slight mist coming off the middle one. The overall place is like a mixture of industrial and environmental architechture. There are metal-looking columns holding up the upper deck, yet the waterfalls look like they were copied from Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, and there are large stones/rocks embedded into the walls everywhere. It sits on the edge of a small park with a decent sized lot and there are hiking paths. We only came for the falls, so I can't speak to the hike, but the area looked fairly nice. I'd like to see it at night as it looks pretty cool in pictures I've seen. If you're looking for something a little different to do or show your visitors from out of town, this is a neat place to go. Hopefully, the smell is a one off, but even if not, hold your breath and go down the stairs..... 13/2026

I heard about this place recently and was in the area and decided to check it out. It basically…read more mini-hydroelectric plant on the canal system and the origin of the canal system is traced back to the Hohokam Indians that lived in the valley about 1500 years ago. The water falls are a cool secondary benefit of the water works plant at Arizona Falls. There is a nice park and biking trail that we look forward to exploring on our next visit. Highly recommended for a unique opportunity to enjoy waterfalls in the valley of the sun and learn about how the innovative Hohokam Indians.

Whenever I visit the ASU Downtown Campus, I always find myself walking through the Civic Space…read morePark. This is a park with a lot of potential as there is a nice grassy area, some tables and chairs next to the US Post Office and ASU Student Center, a beautiful sculpture, and other places to hold an event and escape from the heat. At the same time, the Civic Space Park in recent years has been overrun with the homeless who find their own spaces on the east side of the park and sometimes elsewhere in the park. This has led to some safety concerns from ASU students and their families as many students have to walk across the park to get from the Sun Devil Fitness Complex or the Fusion on First upper-division residence hall across to the rest of the ASU Downtown Campus. There have also been a number of altercations over the last few years between multiple homeless and occasionally between a homeless person and a student. I have seen groups of students and even community members holding events in the park either in front of the Student Center entrance at the tables and chairs (gatherings by students or staff), on the grassy lawn area (community members playing soccer, frisbee, or having a picnic), or even on the south side of the walkway (though the lighting wasn't very good in the evening in that area). Again, it may be a challenge if some of the homeless community members try to engage at these events with the students, staff, and/or community members. Another challenge we learned is that it isn't the role of ASU Police or Phoenix Police to monitor the park. Rather there are park rangers who are responsible for doing so, which adds some complications as the rest of the ASU campus is supported by ASU Police and on occasion, by Phoenix Police. If you look at other reviews of Civic Space Park, it is difficult to find one that doesn't highlight the famous sculpture known as "Her Secret is Patience." In fact, I recall doing a photo shoot about 12 years ago under the sculpture at Civic Space Park. This sculpture is a public art sculpture commission that was designed for the city of Phoenix. The sculpture consists of painted, galvanized steel, polyester twine netting, and colored lights. Again, the space has a lot of potential though due to safety reasons, there is some work to be done to really prepare this park to meet its full potential.

Nice park to just hang out at. Lots of grassy area for kids or animals to run through…read more We just sat there for a while soaking up the sun and people watching. At night the tornado looking thing lights up.

Huge fan of FLW and Taliesin West was the first FLW site I ever visited about 15 years ago so I've…read morealways had a soft spot in my heart for AZ because of this. We were driving to Cosanti and I wanted to stop here to check it out. My favorite part of Taliesen West is the sculpture garden with sculptures by Heloise Crista. The good thing about this location is you can see a couple of the same sculptures for free. The archer near the fountain is very memorable and I took a picture of it for a friend who visited TLW with me and he instantly remembered it.  The spire itself was draped with a blow-up elf for the holidays and it was distracting. It was originally meant for Arizona State Capitol. It's odd its just placed on a street corner though I can see why its probably the best location for it. The spires at the Marin County Civic Center and the Anderton Court Shops are integrated into his architecture and feel a lot more appropriate. Overall, it was quick free stop for FLW fans, no one else was there in the afternoon. You can see a wider breadth of the Crista Sculptures at Taliesen West and there are better FLW spires that are part of his buildings.

This is up their with the weirdest of tourist attractions. During the holidays, the Frank Lloyd…read moreWright Spire is adorned with an elf. Frank Lloyd Wright originally designed this spire with the intention that it be installed at the Arizona capitol building, but instead, it has been mounted by an elf outside a Maggianos. Make of that what you will... I would not make a special trip to see this (we did because it is free and super weird) but fun to check out if you're already in the area. There's plenty of shopping nearby and also that Maggianos. Additionally there are some nice local sculptures from artists who studied under FLW.