Trip Report: San Antonio

San Antonio Sightseeing



On Sunday we drove down to SA to visit my sister, Bray. The traffic wasn't bad but to make it even more fun, Brett bought me a GPS for my birtherversary (sound it out, you'll get it). It has a lifetime subscription to traffic info. It marks current traffic problems, areas of congestion, and anticipated delays. You can choose to avoid them - which we did a few times in TX, making the trip even more enjoyable.

On Monday Bray took us into town. After the wedding, the goal of the trip became "how many NPS (National Park Service) stamps can Megan collect?" and "how many collectible spoons can she score?" Lame, perhaps, but I really enjoy both and Brett puts up with it like a champ. So in honor of that, Bray first took us to the San Antonio Missions. Four missions comprise the single National Park, but each park had an additional stamp to make sure I had to go to all of them. :D

The first mission was San Jose. We went on a tour with a volunteer guide who told the history of the mission from the point of view of the Native Americans who lived in the area. The missions were built primarily by them and for them. In exchange for the loyalty to Spain while acting as colonized, claimed land, the Spanish missionaries taught them how to go from a hunter-gatherer society to farmers who lived in stone houses. The San Jose Mission is one of the premier places for weddings in San Antonio and a quick look at some of the architecture makes it pretty easy to see why. Speaking of architecture, one of the really interesting things we found about SA was the German influence. It was in town names and street names - all over. Certainly not what we expected from some place so close to Mexico. It turns out that Germans came to for a variety of reasons, even early on, and left their mark even in the building of the church in San Jose. In some of the pictures of the outer arch ways you can see the arches change from big round archest to Gothic pointed arches - the work of German Engineers in the early 1700s.

The second mission was Espada. All of the mission churches still have regular Catholic mass celebrated, but Espada is still a monastery as well. The monks who live on the grounds keep beautiful plans around their doors - as well as a "Please keep out" sign.

The third mission we went to was San Juan. It's a beautiful mission with a lot of information about what it takes to restore missions like this. Around there the ground is very unstable. Marks on the building showed major movement from siesmic activity, and solving the problem of how to run electricity in the gift shop without destroying the walls took some creative thinking!

The last mission on our tour was Mission Concepcion. It's the least restored (almost completely untouched) mission and the church is still in fantastic shape (though the rest of the mission walls and living quarters have been lost to war and nature). Inside the church some of the original frescos are still visible. One in particular that is in the ceiling of a room in a sun shape suggests that perhaps not all of the artisans were Spanish or German, and that the natives may have added some of their own stylings. The rope hanging in the picture is the rope to toll the bells before mass.

After 4 missions in BEAUTIFUL 80 something degree weather, we drove to the Tower of the Americas and parked (shout out to Bray's hook up who got us free parking!) and headed to the Alamo. The Alamo isn't a part of the NPS; it's owned by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas but they have a nice stamp for the passport and it seemed like a "must see" for a visit to San Antonio. It was nice, and the ground are beautiful, but visitors aren't allowed to take pictures inside the building, which makes for a short section of the photo album.

From there we went on a little cruise along the Riverwalk. Again, one of those "must see" things. It's very beautiful. Bray and I both daydreamed about getting a room on the "river" and spending the weekend shopping sometime. :D There were some neat things to see along the way, including a "mural" on one of the buildings that is actually a giant mosaic of the development of western technology and culture.

Check out pics here