Travel Thoughts By Kim
Taking one of the river cruises is a great way to see the River Walk in San Antonio.
Let’s go on an adventure together….to San Antonio!
Part three of my recent Texas Adventure covers day four and five in San Antonio. On day four, I left Galveston about 7:30 am to take the approximately four hour drive to San Antonio. The trip was all interstates, so I didn’t get to see much of the countryside on the way. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see any pastures with long horn steer or ranches, but guess they were well hidden off the highway or maybe it wasn’t the best part of Texas for that sort of thing. At any rate – it was a long, but pleasant drive.
I had booked a 48 hour Hop-on-Hop-off bus and River Walk cruise combo tour. So, I drove straight there. I highly recommend if going to downtown San Antonio that you contact your destination and ask about the best place to park. I found that the parking is all paid lots or metered street parking. Your destination can help you save some money and long walks – it could mean the difference between $25-30 per day and $6 per day or having to keep feeding the meter throughout the day. Also, when I called the Alamo, they gave me the GPS address for a nearby hotel because if I plugged the address for the Alamo in my GPS, it would have taken me to an inaccessible location due to construction. Call ahead and ask – you’ll be glad you did!
The River Walk in San Antonio is a must see with lots of shops and restaurants and beautiful settings.
I took the double decker open top bus to some of the stops and got off at the River Walk. WOW – I absolutely LOVED the River Walk – do yourself a favor and do NOT miss it if you’re ever in San Antonio. It is a peaceful and beautiful oasis in the middle of the city with wonderful shops and restaurants and lots of gardens, statues, and other cool things to see and do along the way. I am very glad I had a ticket for the river cruise. It was a great way to see the entire River Walk from the water on about a 30 minute ride with a wonderful guide who talked all about the history of everything we saw. It is a long stretch, so I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten to see it all if I tried to walk the whole way down one side and back the other. I did stroll around a bit after the cruise before I want back to the bus stop to finish the city tour.
After the tour, I went to the hotel. I chose the La Quinta at the airport. It was a nice hotel, but the location wasn’t ideal. The write up made it sound like it was close to the downtown area, but it was actually about a 15 minute drive to downtown in very congested traffic. The upside was that I was only about two minutes from the airport the morning I had to fly out to head home! So, it was fine, but if I had it to do again, I’d pay a little more for something right downtown where I could have left my car parked and walked to most of what I planned to do.
You can’t go to San Antonio without a visit to The Alamo – it doesn’t disappoint!
For day 5, I had booked tickets for the Alamo. Now – you need to know something very important about The Alamo. It is FREE to get into most of the park, but they do require you to reserve an entry time in advance to go in the church and you can only do that on their website – www.thealamo.org (this is also a great link for tons of information about The Alamo). Apparently, they only allow about 100 people inside at any given time, so they control that with the reserved entry time tickets. But, you can stay as long as you want to get the full experience and if it isn’t one of their peak tourist seasons, you likely won’t encounter a lot of people – that was the case for me, so that was nice. While it is free to enter the park, you are able to purchase either a headset that narrates a self-guided tour or you can pay a little more for a tour guide that takes you through with a small group of people. Also, the museum on site is a small extra charge, if that interests you. Be sure to visit the website to read all about what to expect so you can decide what, if anything, extra you may want to pay for. I paid for the headset and entry to the museum, so the entire visit ended up costing me about $20. I didn’t really use the headset, though – most everything had visual aids to explain what I was looking at and, personally, I found the headset to be a distraction. However, the small fees help support the upkeep of the park, so it was well worth it.
The Long Barrack at the Alamo is the oldest building on the Alamo historic site, dating back almost 300 years to the site’s origins as Mission San Antonio de Valero. It served as the quarters and offices of the Spanish missionaries.
I very much enjoyed The Alamo. I spent several hours wandering around the park, looking at all the buildings and exhibits, and just sitting in the peaceful and beautiful gardens. I was struck by the fact that this nearly 300 year old historic site is smack dab in the center of a large, modern city. It’s like walking back in time when you stroll through the gates and reality sinks in when you get glimpses of the city when looking out over the walls of the property. Really cool. I can say that I will definitely “remember the Alamo” and my time there. Don’t miss the chance to embrace a little history when you visit San Antonio.
After I finished with the Alamo, I drove to Austin for the late afternoon and evening…..but, I’ll leave my stories about Austin for my next article in two weeks…..watch for it!
Check out my blog posts with more photos from SanAntonio:
Happy Adventuring!
