Click here to be the first to share your comments for this Travel Diary.
Thursday, July 8, 2007
I took a day trip into San Antonio, so I could visit The Alamo and the The San Antonio Riverwalk. I had been to The Alamo before in 1982, see previous blog, but I had never been to the San Antonio Riverwalk.
Just this week I saw two old TV shows about The Alamo. One was the Time Tunnel, the 60's TV show with James Darren. In that episode the Time Travelers are dropped right into the day The Alamo was over run. The other was Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories episode "Alamo Jobe." I have a Netflix subscription and have been receiving discs from these series and it just so happened that these two episodes showed up this week. Probably only a coincidence but maybe not.
After arriving in San Antonio (road construction made this an event in itself) I went to The Alamo first. It is as I remembered it. Of course the old Fort is no longer there and has not been so for many decades. What remains of the old Fort is the Chapel and maybe a couple of out buildings and some nice garden grounds around the chapel. Admission to the grounds and the Chapel is free.
If you happen to be in downtown San Antonio then I recommend you visit. My only disappointment was they do not allow any photography inside the Chapel. None, not even flashless photography.
On the street in front of The Alamo, named Alamo Plaza, there are numerous road side attractions such as the Guinness World Records Museum, Ripley's Haunted Adventure, and Davy Crockett's Tall Tales Ride plus others.
After The Alamo I went just a couple of blocks away to the San Antonio Riverwalk. I had never been there before and did not even know it existed the last time I was there (1982). I believe the first time I had heard of the San Antonio Riverwalk was the movie Cloak & Dagger (1984) with Dabney Coleman which has some really nice scenes of the San Antonio Riverwalk including the boat tour.
The San Antonio Riverwalk is really nice. It is as close as I have ever been to a Venice like experience except maybe for the Venetian in Las Vegas. Of course this is a real river and not one created inside of a Casino/Hotel complex. You can walk both sides of the river for what seems like miles along both banks with numerous foot and road bridges along the way if you want to switch to the other side. There are numerous sidewalk cafe's and restaurants along the way. After walking for a while on both sides I took the boat tour and really enjoyed the ride. The tour guide was very good explaining not only the history but some of the inside information that you may not hear elsewhere such as some of the designs for flood control. The boat tour is well worth the $7.50 admission.
I had a great time during my visit and I recommend to anyone visiting the area that they allocate a good day for the visit. If you are more inclined to shop then there is a very nice Rivercenter Mall right alongside the Riverwalk. There are Trolley's and water Taxis that have all day passes that makes getting around really easy if you don't like to do a lot of walking.