San Antonio Pt. 1

This is post 1 of a two part series of adventures in San Antonio. Check out the second half of our adventures in Post #2 here.

Have you ever been to San Antonio? I had been there once when I was 20 because my brother was in the Air Force and he was graduating from boot camp. My parents and I headed out there to see him graduate and visit with him. (Fun fact: that was also the 1st time I had ever flown on a plane!) I remember thinking it was a nice city, walking some of the River Walk and a vague visit to the Alamo, but other then that I don’t remember much.

Well fast forward about 13 years and my husband’s company participated in an acceleration program for start up companies. They spent 3.5 months living out there networking and growing their company. That meant that I got to spend some quality time out there while he was living there. I actually spent 1 week there the second month they were there and then I went back for the end of the program festivities with all the other wives and girlfriends for about 4 days.

They rented two apartments in a building right off the River Walk which runs all through downtown San Antonio. I could walk everywhere and if I didn’t want to walk they are big on bike share programs there and I could rent a bike.

They had a cute coffee shop around the corner and nice outdoor restaurant, right up the Riverwalk. The apartment themselves were kinda like a jail cell, not because they were bad apartments but because they were built “modern” which really just meant everything was concrete! The walls, the floors, the ceilings, it was all grey concrete. The air pipes and vents were all exposed and the only light that came in was from the tall glass window of the balcony all the way at the end of the long narrow main area. There must be lots of people who like this style, because the apartments weren’t cheap. I personally feel like they must be making a huge profit because they didn’t have to “finish” the apartments.

San Antonio has a lot of things to do inside the city and also in the surrounding towns. Right in downtown is The Alamo. I didn’t remember that it was so centrally located. Right in the middle of all the new growth of tourist stops and malls stands what remains of The Alamo. We made sure to plan a visit. because it just felt wrong to be in San Antonio and not make a stop. We took our tourist photo outside, but they don’t allow photos inside. Honestly it’s a bit underwhelming. Our meet up spot for a later activity was in front of the Alamo at night so we also got a night picture out front.

We visited the the Tower of the Americas which is a very tall structure in the middle of downtown that is reminiscent of the Seattle Space Needle. You take an elevator to the top where you have a beautiful view of the entire city. They took a very cheesy tourist picture before you head into the elevator. You know I love a good cheesy tourist photo!

We also went to the Tamale festival. I don’t know if it’s all Texans or just a San Antonio thing, but they LOVE tamales. It’s even a holiday staple for Christmas. I wasn’t even sure what a tamale was, but the whole festival was centered around different booths selling different types of tamales. They even had someone dressed up at Tamale Clause (Not kidding!). It was held in an area just a short walk down the river called The Historic Pearl. It’s a very industrial shopping area with hipster shops and restaurants. They have a farmer’s market there on weekends and lots of events at other times of year.

A few of us took one of those Double Decker bus tours while others took a nap. We were really just looking for something do and not intentionally looking for a bus tour, but it actually ended up being quite informative and leading us to areas of town we hadn’t explored yet. We even stumbled upon a trendy artisan pizza restaurant.

After that we all met up back by the Alamo to go on a ghost tour around town. Now I’ve been on lots of ghost tours previously in lots of different cities, but this one was definitely one of the best. The stories were good, the history was great and the creepy level was just right! They even gave us  I would highly recommend it as something to do if you’re visiting San Antonio. They even gave us EMF detectors so we would know if a ghost was near by.

I’ll finish up the last few activities we did while we were there next time! The last one was probably the most exciting! I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

If you’ve been to San Antonia, let me know what you thought of the city below?