My family and I flew into San Antonio, Texas shortly before Christmas in order to visit my in-laws who retired there two years ago. This was my first trip to San Antonio.
After spending a couple of days doing the usual Christmas related activities, we loaded up in my in-laws SUV and drove into downtown San Antonio.
Paseo Del Rio
San Antonio impressed me with its clean streets and tourist friendly layout. We easily found a parking garage (I saw little on-street parking) and set off to explore the city.
We wandered around downtown and crossed over the Paseo Del Rio, or San Antonio River Walk, a couple of times. Unfortunately our agenda for the day didn't allow much time for exploring the River Walk but the parts we saw were beautiful.
Shops, hotels, and restaurants lined the River Walk tempting our appetites and wallets. We finally ended up at Fuddruckers in Alamo Plaza where they claim to make "the World's Greatest Hamburgers." They have good reason to make their claim. The hamburgers were HUGE but my hubby managed to eat all of his burger, and declared it delicious.
The Alamo
After filling our tummies we walked down the street to tour The Alamo. This was the highlight of the day for me!First we posed for the necessary tourist picture. After all, can you really visit such a famous site and NOT take a picture?!
Picture taking completed, we moved into the Long Barrack Museum where we watched a short video explaining the events of March 6, 1836. The Long Barrack Museum also houses a collection of historic items from this era.
As we strolled from display case to display case, I heard my son, Ben (6 yrs.), cry out "Davy Crockett's rifle!" A beginner reader, he had managed to read the sign on the display. Last year we read a biography of Davy Crockett and watched the old movie of his life so Ben recognized Davy's name.
Sufficiently educated about the siege and battle at The Alamo we entered the Shrine. The building you typically think of as The Alamo, and see in the above picture, is the Shrine.
Inside the Shrine everyone speaks in hushed tones, much like you would at a funeral. There are a few more displays to look at and read but mainly I just thought about the men who wanted freedom enough that they died for it.
It's a sobering thought.
Visit San Antonio
I had a great time walking around downtown San Antonio with my family. In addition to the River Walk and The Alamo, we also visited the San Antonio Children's Museum. I'll share about the awesome Children's Museum in another post.After a day in San Antonio I checked off two items on my bucket list. But I also added 2 new places to visit: The Buckhorn Museum and Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum. I guess I'll have to visit San Antonio again!
I highly recommend that YOU visit San Antonio. The warm winter weather makes San Antonio a great February Vacation or Spring Break destination!
Have you visited San Antonio?
Disclosure: I have received NO compensation for this post. I had a great time with my family in San Antonio, Texas and think you will too.
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6 comments:
Oh, I've never heard of that River Walk! It looks fantastic. If we ever make it to San Antonio and the Alamo, I will make sure the River Walk is among our activities. It looks fantastic.
Malea, it really was beautiful. At Christmas the trees are covered in lights, unfortunately we needed to go back to my in-laws and pack to fly home the next day so we didn't see them. But my mother-in-law said they were beautiful.
Most downtown areas have nothing for kids and families to do but San Antonio has lots of stuff! We could have easily spent 3 days just downtown.
Now, the River Walk IS one of my favorites. However, it's a favorite because I went with a group of fantastically good friends AND they had a Starbucks there at a time when the town I grew up in did not. So I thought that was pretty impressive and fun. ;)
Carrie, I always forget you're a Texan. :) I'd love to visit the River Walk again.
These are great pictures. It would be neat to visit the Alamo.
I just started a new blog hop called "I Saw it on Vacation". Hopefully it will become a geography resource for kids. It would be great if you would grab my button and link-up. You can read more about it here if you are interested.
http://highhillhomeschool.blogspot.com/p/i-saw-it-on-vacation-blog-hop.html
Congradulations on the award.
http://highhillhomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/02/blog-awards.html
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