Seeing San Antonio

We arrived in San Antonio and have enjoyed some warm and sunny weather. We have taken in some of the things to see around here.

Through our exploring, we have noted some good things about this area. We have been impressed with how clean it is. There are even people out cleaning in the down town area. The roads are easy to get around on and there seems to be an adequate interstate system with many spokes going into the down town area. They have also done a great job on keeping and restoring historical areas and buildings.

One of these areas is La Villita. It was the beginning of San Antonio. It has original buildings that were built in the late 1700's. They have specialty shops, etc. in them now. It was in this area that Santa Anna lined up his cannons for the fight at the Alamo.

Another area is The Market. Years ago the local farmers and Mexicans would bring their wares here to sell. It is now Mexican shops, restaurants, music, etc.

Another historical area is the King William district. Here many old Victorian style homes, that were the homes of German merchants, have been brought back to their original glory. One man has personally bought 13 of these homes and restored them.


We were able to meet up with one of my brothers and his wife, who were here for the holidays. Since they are familiar with the area, they were our tour guides for some of it.

We went down to the River Walk. I was surprised with what I saw. I thought that it would be at street level, (it is below.) There are lots of shops and restaurants . The walk way follows the horse shoe shape of the river, which is more of a canal now. There are boats that you can ride on it. It is a very pretty part of the city even if it was very busy with people.

There are numerous bridges across it and you can come up to street level in many places. In one place there is a falls.

We came up near the Alamo and walked over to it. We did go back the next day so that we could go inside the Alamo.

The saddest part of this area is that the business stores of today are all just across the streets from the Alamo. It is too bad that there isn't some open space and not just commercial buildings. The other missions do have some space. There is a monument out front listing the names of those who gave their lives here fighting to defend it.

This is from inside; one of those large oak trees.

We went back down to the river walk and ran into Samson trying to hold up the pillars and Deli cutting his hair.

We drove out to one of the Universities and drove through their campus and all the lighted trees. It was very beautiful. It is in this area that the San Antonio river comes bubbling out of the ground as a large spring.

The following day my brother took us to the New River Walk, which is up stream from where we were. This is a nice area for joggers, bikers, and walkers. There is a lock on the river and they do bring some of the tour boats up it also. There are lots of native plants along the sides and some built in attractions, one of which makes it look like you are under ground.

They have also added falls where water enters. It is nice that the sides aren't built up with businesses but that will probably happen some day.

This is looking back towards the main part of town.

Much of the river has been straightened. The part that goes through town use to flood the town. They have done much to prevent this. First they dug a canal that joins the bottoms of the horse shoe. There are flood gates here so that the water can be shut off from going in the horse shoe. Also, upstream they have drilled underground tunnels to divert water past the down town during heavy rainfall.

We took in the Missions in this area but I will save that for the next blog.