San Antonio Vacation - Forget the Alamo
There’s more to San Antonio than tacky souvenirs
San Antonio airport’s pastel hues and corridors lined with paintings by local artists were a welcome relief after the bland halls of Dallas no-nonsense terminal. I checked into my hotel and, after a brief nap among the eight pillows lining my Texas-size bed, I took a stroll downtown.
Like most visitors to San Antonio, I headed straight for The Alamo, site of one of the most publicized battles in American history. In 1836, a ragtag band of patriots defended this small patch of Texas against the army of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. The valiant Texans managed to hold off several thousand heavily armed Mexican troops for 13 days. Then on March 6th, Santa Anna’s men overran the Alamo’s walls and massacred everyone inside. The battle cry “Remember the Alamo!” still echoes like a mantra through the annals of Texan history.
Today, the remains of the Alamo - actually an 18th-century Christian mission called San Antonio de Valero - stand across from a shady square in downtown San Antonio. The Alamo is a national shrine and Texas’ most-visited spot. Crowds of hushed tourists and wide-eyed school children file through the Alamo’s doors every day. But in truth there is really not much to see behind the mission’s plain facade: a few commemorative plaques, plus a slim assortment of flint lock rifles, rusty bayonets, and other battle relics. An adjoining gift shop sells the likes of Alamo Crackers, Alamo key chains, and Alamo coffee mugs inscribed with the motto “Liberty or Death!”.
Fortunately, there’s much more to San Antonio than tacky souvenirs and over-milked stories of patriotism. An attractive sub-tropical city of over one million people, San Antonio lies only about 200 kilometers from the Mexican border. Not surprisingly, the city’s population is approaching sixty percent Hispanic, resulting in a fruitful blend of Latin and Anglo cultures.
After exiting The Alamo, it didn’t take me long to discover the real pride of San Antonio, the Paseo del Rio or River Walk. Formed by channeling water from the San Antonio River, the River Walk meanders through the city centre for over five kilometers. Lively outdoor restaurants, where beer and salsa flow late into the night, line much of this narrow waterway. Other stretches are more serene, with arched bridges, flagstone paths, and overhanging trees. Open-air boats continuously ply the placid waters, adding to the romantic scene.
Next morning, I visited one of San Antonio’s newest treasures, The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art. This three-level wing of the San Antonio Museum of Art - which occupies the former Lone Star Brewery - opened in 1998 and cost US$11 million. It houses some 10,000 artworks spanning 4000 years of Latin American culture, the most comprehensive collection of this kind in the United States.
The centre has four separate galleries featuring pre-Columbian pieces, Spanish colonial art, folk art, and contemporary works. I was taken with the imaginative presentation of the museum’s offerings. Mayan arches and floor-to-ceiling windows recreate a sunlit ruin in the pre-Columbian gallery, which has sculptures and masks from as far away asChile. Soft lighting and vaulted ceilings produce a somber, cathedral-like atmosphere for the Spanish colonial area’s gilded altars and religious icons.
Like many other American cities, San Antonio suffered “mall drain” during the 1980s and 90s when stores relocated to suburban malls. Recently San Antonio has been sprucing up its neglected downtown. One night, I attended a concert given by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the Majestic Theatre, a refurbished vaudeville movie. Majestic’s decor was memorable. Fanciful imitation colonial facades make up the interior walls. Their towers poke into a faux night sky, complete with twinkling stars, painted on the theatre’s expansive dome.
San Antonio’s high tech public library was next on my list. This avant-garde building stirred up plenty of controversy when it opened in 1995. Critics argued that internationally known Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta’s modernistic design was out of sync with the city’s conservative skyline. Legorreta piled geometric shapes - cubes, rectangles, triangles, and spheres - like children’s building blocks to construct the six-storey library. The resulting enchilada-red, blue, and yellow structure manages to look both playful and serious at the same time, certainly appropriate, I thought, for a storehouse of knowledge.
San Antonio has no shortage of traditional Spanish architecture. During the 1700s, Franciscan friars established a chain of five missions along the San Antonio River. Today, these colonial buildings are protected within the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. The Alamo, which dates back to 1718, is the oldest mission but not the largest or most beautiful. Both those distinctions belong to Mission San Jose, situated about eight kilometers south of the Alamo. San Jose’s church has massive stone towers pointing heavenward plus a Baroque facade covered in cherubs and saints. Grassy fields and ancient oak trees surround this peaceful outpost.
Thankfully, there isn’t a souvenir stand in sight.
Author: John Mitchell
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