Saturday, December 31, 2011

San Antonio Alamo, Gardens, and River Walk

After the Hill Country we headed over to San Antonio....decided to see a big city for a change. Our destination was the Sam Houston Army Base. (Kim is ex-Navy so she has base privileges. )Nice place. The military bases are usually clean, safe and orderly...not many frills, but about 50% the cost of a private RV park.

Our first stop was the Alamo downtown. I did a bunch of research to get a feel for the battle and where everything happened so, when we got down there, I could orient us to better understand what happened. However....when we got there, things were not quite what we expected.
This is the "icon" of the Alamo (the chapel) but very little fighting was done here.
They had some wonderful gardens in the back of this chapel but none of that was part of the original plot of land.
The circled area is the Alamo Chapel and the green area to the right are the gardens
This is a great overlay of the old, original Alamo area superimposed on what is there today. The large courtyard out front is where the battle took place and, as the walls to the left were breached, they retreated to Number 3 and fought there.


This is a great depiction of the battle (which happened before dawn). You can see the breach to the left. Most of this courtyard is either present day streets or buildings.
Another visit we made was to the River Walk. LOTS of restaurants but some very colorful places and, at night, the lights were wonderful.





We ate at Pat O'Brien's on the street. Had a couple of Hurricanes (ymmmmm!) and muffalettas...wonderful sandwiches.


Delicious !
Anyway...nice time in San Antonio....the downtown was safe and the River Walk was extensive.

Next Stop: East Texas and the Piney Woods area.

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