San Antonio Daytrip

San Antonio is my favorite place for a daytrip - there is so much to do, so much history and atmosphere, and such variety of experience to be had.  We started off our weekend trip with lunch at Shilo's, an old-time German-Texan institution right in the heart of touristy downtown. Yes, it is full of tourists, but no matter - it's a fabulous survivor, with its wooden booths, raw plaster walls and tin ceiling.  The menu is full of German-Texan specialties like bratwurst and other sausages, potato pancakes, and sauerkraut.  The root beer is homemade and delicious.

Shilo's (photo from their website)

After lunch the relatives we were touring with suggested going for a boat ride, which is something we'd never done, but which suddenly sounded perfect after such a heavy lunch.  The Alamo could wait.  We picked up tickets down by the riverbank and after a few minutes wait were cruising peacefully along the river listening to our thankfully-low-key and knowledgeable tour guide.  The best parts were when we left the main part of the busy river walk, and explored the more workaday parts of the river - there's just no other way to get this interesting perspective on the city.

One of the floodgates on the San Antonio River (we're about to go through it here)

A river through the city...

And of course - the Alamo!

A bit later, we wandered all around the Alamo, which has lovely (if crowded) grounds.  A side building, originally the Old Convento, houses displays of nineteenth-century military uniforms, guns, swords, and other artifacts.  Outside, my son eagerly joined the crowd of children peering down into the acequia at the huge carp swimming to and fro.  I admit, these fish were really beautiful!

Later on, we tried to dine at La Gloria, but the hour-long wait again put us off.  Instead we found Tomatillo's, just a few blocks up Broadway.  This place is unassuming from the outside and couldn't be called hip, exactly, but has pretty darn good straightforward tex-mex (and good-enough margaritas served in comically large goblets).  Are you traveling with a bunch of kids and just need a good tex-mex place that will make everybody happy?  Tomatillo's is your place.

We had never visited the San Antonio Botanical Garden before, and boy, were we missing out!  It's beautiful and expansive, with so much to explore.  This was how we spent the next morning (and we'll need to go back, we couldn't see everything in just a few hours).

My son pointed out that this tree's not so great for climbing (there's a wonderful collection of potted citrus in the Orangerie in the background)

A map of the Gardens

The Gardens include some charmingly tiny historic houses, wide open lawns for running around in, a children's vegetable garden, a winding acequia, and a small Japanese garden with incredible bamboo fencing...

The Japanese Garden

There is also a series of rather futuristic glass pavilions and courtyards presiding over the site. My favorite, from a conceptual standpoint, was the Tropical Room, which housed coffee, chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and allspice plants - and many more in a similar vein. Here is the beautiful Desert Room...

p.s. I found out - sadly, too late for this little trip - that Trader Joe's is now open in San Antonio, in the lovely Alamo Heights neighborhood!  The perfect place for weekend trip snacks, right?  Of course, Central Market is always great too (that's where we went - it's worth checking out if you've never been.  Best supermarket ever.).

San Antonio, Texas

The bus at Kiddie Park - a favorite!

San Antonio keeps a low profile, but there is a surprising amount for families to do in this faded but beautiful city.  It’s an easy day trip from Austin and we go there pretty often. It’s the 6^th largest city in the nation (as of 2010), but it often feels semi-deserted (outside of the downtown core anyway).  The lack of gentrification means that San Antonio still has oodles of charm. Aside from our chosen destinations, I just like driving around this city – we always come across charmingly funky old buildings dating from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  I especially love the 1920s Spanish-style architecture, which you see all over the city.

What follows is just our most recent itinerary – in future posts I’ll tell you about the Missions (not forgetting the Alamo!), downtown, a crazy restaurant called Mi Tierra, the zoo, and lots more.

First Stop: Kiddie Park!  This sweet little amusement park has been in operation since 1925 (local parents have told me that it was pretty run-down when they were kids – it’s lovely now).  It is refreshingly free of branded characters and in-your-face marketing.  Instead it offers 9 little rides, including an antique merry-go-round, a ferris wheel, mini airplanes, boats, and more.  It is, in a word, cute. It is also a pretty good deal at $13 for unlimited rides (there’s no admission fee).  There is a snack bar (candy, goldfish, pizza, etc.), but you’re welcome to bring your own food and sit at one of the many picnic tables.

After getting his fill of the rides (plus a few games of pinball), we still weren’t hungry for lunch yet, so we paid a visit to Alamo Fiesta.  This rambling store is basically a party store but also has clothing and decorative items.  The many rooms are stuffed to the gills with piñatas, paper flowers, garlands, hats, and more.  Oscar picked out a mini piñata for a souvenir and I picked up some big packages of crepe paper, which they carry in lots of colors (I’ll definitely be buying some more next visit, which I feel will be soon!)

For lunch we dined at La Gloria, in the recently renovated Pearl Brewery complex (now known simply as Pearl).  This bustling place is super kid-friendly (there’s a lawn for them to play on post-meal), but also nice for adults; I’d go there to meet a friend for a margarita anytime. 

My Tacos al Pastor

La Gloria Ice House

While at Pearl we checked out The Twig Book Shop, a small bookstore with a large children’s section (They do a story-time on Fridays).  Next door is Melissa Guerra Tienda de Cocina, which stocks kitchen equipment and tableware with an emphasis on Mexican cooking.  Across the street we found a new children’s clothing shop called Roo & Me – small selection, but worth peeking into if you have a minute…

Melissa Guerra  Tienda de Cocina

Finally it was time to head home - but not before a quick stop at Bird Bakery on the way out of town. This bakery is really all about cupcakes - and they are delicious! Not too large, and slathered in delicately tinted buttercream frosting. Yum!