Mission San Antonio Part 1

Road trip to San Antonio!  My husband and I love to be tourists and since we were going to Austin for a race, we decided to spend a few days in San Antonio. This city is one of Texas` most famous tourist spots. Remember the Alamo?  Well we will never forget it! We went to see this historic site right after we checked into the hotel. This is such a significant site in the road to Texas becoming part of the United States.

The missions on the San Antonio River were built in the 1700`s and forms the largest concentration of Catholic missions in North America. The Spanish explorers from New Spain (Mexico) traveled north across the Rio Grande in search of riches. As they traveled east they encountered the Tejas Indians for whom Texas was named. When the dream of riches faded the Spanish concentrated on spreading the Catholic faith among the frontier Indians.  The Missions were both an agent of the church and the Mexican government by converting the the Indians, and by pushing the empire northward.

The Alamo was originally built on the Rio Grande, but later moved to the San Antonio River due to threats by the French in Louisiana.

Mission San Antonio de Valero "The Alamo"

The Alamo (Mission San Antonio de Valero) was the first mission on the San Antonio River. It was founded in 1718 and is most famous for the Battle of the Alamo in February and March of 1836. President Antonio Santa Anna led the Mexican army to the Alamo and embarked on a 13 day battle that killed all of the Texan defenders. These defenders included the famous Davy Crockett. The cruelty of Santa Anna inspired many Texas settlers to join the Texan army and fight for independence. The Texans defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 and ended the revolution.

The bodies of the Alamo Heroes were moved and buried in a tomb in the Cathedral of San Fernando. 

The above picture shows the apartments at the Alamo where the Indians lived. The natives in the area  that were taken in by the Friers of the mission, were not only converted spiritually, but were given clothes, taught how to farm, and how to fight to help defend the mission from other tribes that were not as friendly, or interested in becoming a part of the mission.

San Antonio is also famous for the river walk. The river walk is like a canal system that goes through the city that is beautifully landscaped, littered with cool bridges, inhabited by many wonderful restaurants, shops, hotels, and taxi/tour boats.  We took the boat tour at night and loved it. Then, the next day we walked the entire river walk and were able to take pictures of all the spots they told us about on the boat tour.

This is just one of the views on the river walk where you can see a restaurant in the background.

The landscaping along the river walk is breathtaking in many areas. We took the boat tour in the evening and it was really beautiful to see the city all lit up while on the water.

The picture above shows a tour boat or water taxi. It was a great way to see and learn about the city. We were told that the river was designed with dams and locks so that they can drain the river and clean it of all the sunglasses, flip flops and other items that are dropped into the river. They do this maintenance in January of odd numbered years.

After the flood in 1921, you could see the water line on the old buildings along the river walk, the tree in the wall above started to grow after that flood.

We checked out of the hotel at 2pm and wanted to do the mission tour before we left for Austin. Now there are five missions on the tour including the Alamo. Since we had already seen the Alamo, we had four to go. The only problem was that they all close at 5pm and we had to drive about 17 miles to get to the first one. So we had four Missions to see, and also an Aqueduct to visit. Talk about your quick tour.

I will do a few more blogs on the missions, because the pictures are so wonderful and I want to be able to share as many as I can with you.