Texas Tourism Hotels Guide: Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and more

Texas Tourism and Hotels Guide: Includes: Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and more.

Still cherishing the memory that it was from 1836 to 1845 an independent nation in its own right, the State of TEXAS stands apart from the rest of the US. While the sheer size, 800 miles from east to west and nearly 1,000 from top to bottom, gives it a great geographical diversity, is firmly bound together by a shared history, culture and ideology. Independence is key to the Texan mentality, from the overriding mistrust of government, any government, to the absence of unionized labor. As the old anti-litter campaign put it, "Dont mess with Texas."

Preconceived ideas about what exactly is Texan are soon crushed. It's actually one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan states in the Union and each of the major tourism destinations has its own distinct character. Hispanic San Antonio, for example, with its Mexican population and historic importance, has a laid back feel absent from the big city neurosis of Houston or Dallas, while trendy Austin relishes in a lively music scene and intellectualism found nowhere else in the state.

In Texas regional differences are immense. The swampy, forested east is more like Louisiana than the pretty Hill Country or the agricultural plains of the Panhandle , and the tropical Gulf Coast has little in common with the mountainous deserts of the west. Changes in climate are equally dramatic: snow is common on the Panhandle, whereas the humidity of Houston, in particular, is only made bearable by nonstop high-power air conditioning.

One thing shared by the whole State of Texas is the constant boasting, everything has to be bigger and better than anywhere else. Such chauvinism is tempered both by a delight in self parody and by the states melting pot of cultures. The much cited Texan friendliness is not imaginary: to be unwelcoming would simply be unpatriotic. Texas is, after all, named for a Native American word meaning friend, tejas, and a visit here, especially to the Panhandle or the Hill Country, is not for those who want to be alone.
Top Texas Destinations
The Alamo
Shed a patriotic tear at the Alamo in San Antonio, the mission-fort where American volunteers were wiped out by Mexican forces in 1836 - and if you feel cheeky, ask for the "basement" as Pee-Wee Herman did in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure .

Starlight Theater
Enjoy the stars - in the sky and on stage in this glorious desert bar in the tiny West Texas ghost town of Terlingua.

The Menil Collection
This premier gallery in Houston has a magnificent collection of ancient and modern artworks, plus the sombre Rothko Chapel.

The Sixth Floor Museum
The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas is in the very building from which Oswald allegedly shot JFK and cannot help but be affecting, with views overlooking infamous Dealey Plaza.

Padre Island National Seashore
Despite encroaching condos, Padre Island National Seashore, on the Gulf Coast of Texas, is still an excellent spot for bird watching, beachcombing and camping.

Austin Texas Music
Austin hosts the famous South by Southwest Music Festival in March, when bands from Texas and around the world come to town, but you can experience the Austin sound year round at countless music venues, such as the alternatively inflected Emo's , and the hot blues joint Antone's .

Johnson Space Center Houston Texas
Explore the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas, where you can eat lunch with astronauts at the employee cafeteria, eye the disturbingly low tech looking rockets of missions past, and get your hands on countless interactive exhibits.

San Antonio Riverwalk
Texas offers few more romantic experiences than a riverside stroll through the heart of San Antonio.

Rafting the Santa Elena Canyon
The Rio Grande rushes through this narrow gorge in remote Big Bend National Park.

The Stockyards
Watch a cattle drive, or tuck into a colossal steak in this cowboy heaven.
Exploring Regions of Texas
Central Texas stretches from the prairies of the north east through the green and fertile Hill Country into the chalky limestone landscape of the west, and includes two of the most pleasant cities in Texas: San Antonio and Austin. Austin Texas in particular, the capital city and home to the progressive University of Texas, helps to give the region an intellectual and political feel uncharacteristic of the rest of the state.

Agriculture has been the mainstay of the economy here ever since the resistant Comanche population was finally sent off to reservations in the 1840s. The slave driven cotton plantations of the south and east have gone, but the small communities set up by Polish, Czech, Norwegian and Swedish immigrants in the Hill Country maintained, even until very recently, the traditions, architecture and languages of their homelands. Great cattle drives came trampling through after the Civil War and played a large part in the development of San Antonio.
North and East Texas
Early immigration into north and east Texas , during the days of the Republic and following the devastation of the Civil War, was largely from the Southern states. In the 1930s, the northeastern oil fields near Tyler a drab town only redeemed by its beautiful rose gardens proved to be the richest ever found in the US. In addition to oil, agriculture has become a prime source of commerce, with logging important in the densely forested east. The grand exception is, of course, the Metroplex, the area which includes Dallas and Fort Worth. The main tourist attractions and cultural life of the region are concentrated here; but if you enjoy exploring small-town America, and have a car, the north and east can yield more subtle pleasures. The national forests of Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine and Sam Houston in the east offer unsurpassed opportunities for outdoor living: the forest supervisor tel 713/632-4446 in Lufkin, midway between Davy Crockett and Angelina on US-59, has details of free and private camping facilities. Fans of the movie will want to check out Paris, Texas, northeast on US-82.
The Texas Panhandle
The residents of the Texas Panhandle, the southern most portion of the Great Plains, call it "the real Texas", it certainly fulfills the desire of what Texas should look like. When Coronados expedition passed this way in the sixteenth century, the gold-seekers drove stakes into the ground across the vast and unchanging vista, despairing of otherwise finding their way home. Hence the name Llano Estacado , or staked plains, which still persists today.

Once the buffalo and the natives had been driven away from what was seen as perilous and uninhabitable frontier country, the Panhandle began, around the 1870s, to yield great natural resources. Helium, especially in Amarillo and oil, as well as agriculture, have brought wealth to the region, home to some of the largest ranches in the World.

The Panhandle may hold few actual tourist attractions, but what appeals are its rural charm, its quirkiness and its distance from the eastern cities. Music has particular significance in an area famous for songwriters such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Mac Davis, Joe Ely and Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks, although most musicians relocate to cosmopolitan centers like Austin Texas. Above all, the exceptionally hospitable people of the Panhandle make it special, along with the starkly romantic landscape, strewn with tumbleweeds and mesquite trees.
Southern Texas and the Gulf Coast
The coastline of south Texas, which state residents lightheartedly refer to as the Third Coast, curves from Port Arthur on the Louisiana border a shipping and petrochemical town and the birthplace of Janis Joplin on the popular tourist destination of the Gulf Coast, down past the urban monster of Houston, to the Rio Grande, the border with Mexico. Giant, cosmopolitan Houston dominates everything; its great wealth has led to a thriving arts scene, but ultimately it overpowers, rather than relates to, the rest of the region. Geographically and culturally, this area has two distinct faces. To the east are the seaside resorts of the prairie, rolling away from the hills and forests of east Texas. Much of the coast is feeling the strain of rapid property development, but there are still unspoiled stretches along the Padre Island National Seashore . In the south, a Hispanic influence spreads north from the fertile Rio Grande Valley. The border towns here have little charm and are only of interest as points of entry into Mexico for cheap shopping and entertainment. Uniting south Texas is the hot, swampy climate; Houston, especially, is unbearable in the summer, one reason for the mass exodus to the coast.
West Texas
West Texas is the stuff of Wild West fantasy: parched deserts, ghost towns, looming mesas, and above all a sense of utter isolation. Although the area south from the Panhandle down to Del Rio on the Rio Grande is, for convenience, also known as West Texas, the fantasy really begins west of the River Pecos; you can drive for hours without a sign of life to El Paso, Texas's shabby westernmost city. Most travelers only venture into the desolation to explore Big Bend National Park, nearly three hundred miles southeast of El Paso in the curve of the Rio Grande.

Minimal rainfall and harsh land were not the only hindrances to settlement. The Apache and Comanche , though accustomed in the 1820s to trading with Mexican comancheros , were infuriated when hapless white pioneers began to trickle in during the 1830s. With their horsemanship and ability to find scarce water supplies, the Native Americans posed a real threat; upon statehood, a string of cavalry forts was set up with the help of federal money to protect Mexican and Anglo settlers from attack. As trading posts and cattle ranges began to spring up after the Civil War, the paramilitary Texas Rangers were sent out on violent vigilante missions. Eventually, as in the Panhandle, a brutal program of buffalo slaughter, supported by the US Army, starved the natives out. Not long afterwards, oil was discovered in West Texas and boom towns appeared, with all the attendant lawlessness, gunslinging and brawling.
Top Texas Cities
Austin Texas
AUSTIN was only a tiny community on the verdant banks of the (Texas) Colorado River when Mirabeau B. Lamar, president of the Republic, suggested in 1839 that it would make a better capital than swampy and disease-ridden Houston. Early building had to be done under armed guard, as angry Comanche watched from the surrounding hills, but despite its perilous location, the city thrived.

These days it wears its status as capital of Texas very lightly; sightseeing rates as a low priority against simply hanging out. Since the 1960s, this laid-back and progressive city has been a haven for artists, musicians and writers. Many visitors come specifically for the music . Local musicians are renowned for their innovative reworkings of Texas's country, folk and R&B heritage, often severing their rural roots to use Austin's enthusiastic environment as a springboard to national recognition. Janis Joplin had her start here in the early 1960s, and at the end of that decade, Austin was second only to San Francisco in its adherence to the "turn on, tune in, drop out" philosophy, with locals coining the term "headneck" to describe themselves. Musicians hungry for fame still tumble out of buses from all over Texas to seek their fortunes in the literally hundreds of live venues.

Austin is one of the few cities in the state where cycling is a viable alternative to driving. It may not have completely avoided the usual problems of urban growth - thanks to a sizeable population leap, ugly suburbs have shot up to threaten its small-town ambience - but it feels wonderfully safe for visitors, even women traveling alone, and the presence of the vast UT campus adds to the atmosphere, even if almost every shop and streetlamp is adorned with the unsightly brown and white colors of the college's Longhorns football team.

Within the city limits a great park system offers numerous hiking and biking trails and a wonderful spring-fed swimming pool. Looking further afield, Austin makes a fine base for exploring the green Hill Country that rolls away to the west.

Austin Texas - The Town
The Texas State Capitol , at 13th Street and Congress Avenue, is over 300ft high, taller than the national capitol in Washington, with a red sunset granite dome that dominates the downtown skyline. The chandeliers, carpets and even the door hinges of this colossal building are emblazoned with lone stars and other Texan motifs, a theme continued in the recent extension, a sleek maze of marble halls (daily 9am-5pm; public tours every 15min; free). Nearby, the antebellum Governor's Mansion , 1010 Colorado St, contains displays on Texan history (free tours Mon-Fri every 20min 10am-noon). Congress Avenue , a stretch of 1950s shops and muted office buildings that slopes south from the capitol down to the river, is worthy of a stroll; at dusk 1.5 million bats - the world's largest urban bat colony - emerge in a large cloud from their hangouts under the bridge. 6th Street , also known as Old Pecan Street, runs west from I-35 to Congress Street, and is the focus of much of the city's nightlife, as well as featuring many renovated buildings, galleries and hip shops. The elegant Romanesque Driskill Hotel , on the corner with Brazos Street, has its own self-guided walking tour, with a glossy leaflet recounting the hotel's many links with government since 1886. Between 5th and 6th streets, just west of Lamar Boulevard, the 600-year-old Treaty Oak is the last of the Council Oaks where treaties were signed with Native Americans; unfortunately, someone chose to poison the tree in 1989, and only one-third of it remains.

The recently opened Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum , at Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and North Congress Avenue should satisfy anyone's curiosity for Texas arcana. Exhibits include the diary of Stephen F. Austin, generally considered the founder of the state, and a Bible that saved the life of Sam Houston Jr, during the Civil War; a bullet is still lodged in its pages (Mon-Sat 9am-6pm; $5). The Elisabet Ney Museum at 304 E 44th St is a German-influenced castle-like building in a leafy, historic residential area. It preserves the last studio, with marquettes and finished marbles, of Austin's most celebrated sculptor (Wed-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; free).

Zilker Park , across the river from Amtrak and southwest of the center, is one of the best of the many fine parks in the city, a perfect retreat on sweaty Austin afternoons. One of its main attractions is the spring-fed (and deliciously cold) Barton Springs Pool , a 1000ft turquoise rectangle shaded by pecan trees (daily 5am-10pm; $2.50 Mon-Fri, $2.75 Sat & Sun). You can paddle in the pebbly creek below the pool free of charge, and you'll also find hiking and biking trails, a miniature railroad winding beside the river (daily 10am-7pm; $2.75), and, to the west, the wildlife garden of the Austin Nature and Science Center (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; free; tel 512/327-8181, ). South of the Barton Springs Pool on Robert E. Lee Road, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden (Wed-Fri 10am-4.30pm, Sat & Sun 1-4.30pm; $3.50; tel 512/445-5582, ) is a tranquil, grassy enclave dotted with more than one hundred works in bronze, terracotta, wood and marble. More outdoor relief can be found farther north on the banks of the Colorado River. Don't miss Mayfield Park , a peaceful idyll complete with water lilies and peacocks. Nearby Mount Bonnell gives great views over the city and surrounding countryside.

The Austin Museum of Art is in the process of relocating from its Laguna Gloria location, at 3809 W 35th St, to a permanent facility downtown, scheduled to open in 2004. In the meantime, many exhibits are on view at a separate downtown location, at 823 Congress Ave Tues-Sat 10am-6pm, Thurs until 8pm, Sun noon-5pm; $3; tel 512/495-9224
Dallas Texas
Contrary to popular belief, there's no oil in glitzy, status-conscious DALLAS . Since its foundation as a prairie trading post, by Tennessee lawyer John Neely Bryan and his Arkansan friend Joe Dallas in 1841, successive generations of entrepreneurs have amassed wealth here through trade and finance, using first cattle and later oil reserves as collateral. One early group of European settlers of the 1850s - a group of French intellectuals and artists known as the La Reunion co-operative - had to pack up and move on after a series of summer droughts and a harsh winter; the few who stayed would include a future mayor of Dallas. The city still prides itself on their legacy of arts and high culture.

The power of money in Dallas was demonstrated in the late 1950s, when its financiers threw their weight behind integration. Potentially racist restaurant owners and bus drivers were pressured not to resist the new policies, and Dallas was spared major upheavals. The city's image was, however, catastrophically tarnished by the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and it took the building of the giant Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in the 1960s, and the twin successes of the Dallas TV show and the Cowboys football team in the 1970s to restore confidence. Then boom turned to crash once more. Unemployment and the demise of the fictional Ewings, not to mention an appalling crime rate, all took their toll, but the indomitable entrepreneurial spirit remains. After a slump in the late 1980s, the Cowboys are back in the big time, though their off-field antics have provided the nation's papers with some anti-Dallas copy once again.

Competitive with Houston, and smug about its cowtown neighbor Fort Worth, Dallas boasts of its "sophistication" and its "old" wealth. For all that, the stuffiness is tempered by a typically Texan delight in self-parody, and there's still fun to be had if you know where to look - especially in the alternative Deep Ellum district, with its superb restaurants and nightlife.

Dallas - The City
Downtown Dallas is a hymn to commerce. Many of its skyscrapers are landmarks in themselves; at night the red neon Mobil Pegasus on the 1921 Magnolia Building on Akard and Commerce streets appears to gallop over the city, while over two miles of green argon tubing delineate the 72-story Bank of America building. The original Neiman Marcus department store, set up in 1907 by sister and brother Carrie Neiman and Herbert Marcus and famed for its glamorous Christmas catalog, is still there on Main Street (Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Thurs until 8pm). One refuge is the Center for World Thanksgiving at Thanksgiving Square at the intersection of Akard, Ervay and Bryan streets and Pacific Avenue (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat & Sun 1-5pm), with its meditation garden, fountains and modern spiraling chapel - though even here pealing bells boom out at regular intervals. South of the square on Ervay Street looms the precarious upside-down pyramid of City Hall , possibly familiar as the police station in Robocop .

On the north edge of downtown, the Arts District boasts the huge and wide-ranging Dallas Museum of Art , 1717 N Harwood St (Tues-Sun 11am-5pm, Thurs until 9pm; free, around $5 for special exhibits; tel 214/922-1200, ), which has plenty of European works downstairs, including a good range of Mondrians, and an especially impressive pre-Columbian collection in the Gallery of the Americas upstairs. Two blocks east, at 2301 Flora St, the magnificent Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center , designed by I.M. Pei, is the home of the symphony orchestra. The vast geometries of glass, onyx and wood inside cost $80 million, as the tour guides won't let you forget.

Tourists flock to the restored redbrick warehouses of the West End Historic District , the site of the original 1841 settlement on Lamar and Munger streets, for the eighty stores and twenty restaurants here. The indoor marketplace has become something of an amusement arcade, with a Planet Hollywood , tacky giftshops, crazy golf, and fast-food outlets.

A couple of blocks south and west of here lies Dealey Plaza , forever associated with the Kennedy assassination. A small park beside Houston Street's triple underpass, it remains unchanged since the fateful day - in fact, since it was designed by a committee which included LBJ, in the late 1930s - and must be one of the most recognizable urban streetscapes in the world. The Texas Schoolbook Depository itself, at 411 Elm St, is now the Dallas County Administration Building, the penultimate floor of which houses The Sixth Floor Museum (daily 9am-6pm; $9, or $12 with audio tour; tel 214/747-6660 or 1-888/485-4854, ). Displays build up a suspenseful narrative, with the infamous blurred 8mm images of Kennedy crumpling into Jackie's arms left until the end, at which point there's likely to be much sobbing from moved visitors, who can exorcize their grief by writing in the "memory book." The "gunman's nest" has been re-created and, whatever you feel about Oswald's guilt, it is undeniably chilling to look down at the streets below and imagine the mayhem the shooter must have seen that day.

One block west of Dealey Plaza, in the Dallas Historical Plaza on Main and Market streets, an open cenotaph, designed by Philip Johnson and enclosing an 8ft flat granite block, stands as the John F. Kennedy Memorial . Alongside, at 110 S Market St, the Conspiracy Museum (daily 10am-6pm; $7) is a dreadful waste of money. It strives to impress with its CD-ROM technology, but in fact displays the usual amateurish hand-drawn diagrams and wild accusations, interpreting virtually every public act in America since the late 1950s as the work of the Professional War Machine.

A little further south and east is the city's main business and administrative district, focused around City Hall on Marilla Street. Pioneer Plaza , at Young and Griffin streets, holds the world's largest bronze sculpture, a monument to the cattle drives that depicts forty longhorn steers under the guidance of three cowboys.

You can see all of these and much more from the 51st-story observation deck in the Reunion Tower , 300 Reunion Blvd (daily 10am-10.30pm; $2), on the east side of downtown next to the Amtrak station. The Dome Lounge , in the Tower, provides a good place to sip some liquor.

Farther southeast, across I-30, near Harwood Street at 1717 Gano St, Dallas's first park, Old City Park , now serves as both recreational area and museum, charting the history of the city from 1840 to 1910 through more than thirty buildings relocated from towns in north Texas, among them a farmhouse, a bank, a train station, a store, a church and a schoolhouse Tues-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun noon-4pm; tours Tues-Sat 11.30am and 1.30pm, Sun 12:30pm and 2:30pm; $7; 214/421-5141.
Houston Texas
HOUSTON is an ungainly beast of a city, confused by overdevelopment during the oil boom and then traumatized by the sudden slump of the early 1980s. It's a suffocating place, choking with traffic and high on humidity, yet for all this, its sheer energy, its relentless Texan pride, and above all its refusal to take itself totally seriously, give it a perverse appeal, while its well-endowed museums and rich nightlife mean there is always something to do. That Howard Hughes came from Houston makes absolute sense; eccentric, domineering and sordid, the millionaire typified all that makes the city intriguing.

There is no good reason why Houston exists at all; it was founded on a muddy mire in 1837 by two brothers from New York who hoped it would become the capital of the new Republic of Texas. For all their wild claims about its potential as a port, and its (imaginary) urban attractions, the more promising site of Austin was made capital in 1839. However, by then Houston had somehow established itself as a commercial center. Oil - discovered in 1901, and, like the city itself, unpredictable and heading for obsolescence - became the foundation, along with cotton and real estate, of vast private fortunes. Among the most famous of the philanthropists responsible for the development of downtown Houston was the cruelly named Ima Hogg. Her city improvement projects were largely cosmetic, however, and the contradictions of urban life are still writ large here, where abject poverty (not least among the blacks who migrated here from the rural South in the 1960s) coexists with ostentatious wealth

Houston - The City
It's demoralizing and unwise to try and see too much of Houston in one go; best to concentrate on downtown or the Museum District , which can be walked around at leisure. Houston's human face is most evident in the Montrose area, on the way to yuppification but still home to eccentrics and bohemians.
San Antonio Texas
With neither the modern skyline of an oil town, nor the tumbleweed-strewn landscape of the Wild West, attractive and festive SAN ANTONIO looks nothing like the stereotypical image of Texas - despite being pivotal in the state's history. Standing at a geographical crossroads, it encapsulates the complex social and ethnic mixes of all Texas. Although the Germans, among others, have made a strong contribution to its architecture, cuisine and music, today's San Antonio is predominantly Hispanic : abundant Tex-Mex restaurants, the prevalent Catholicism, the newly expanded Mexican Cultural Institute and advertising billboards in Spanish all attest to a long history of "Texican" culture.

Founded in 1691 by Spanish missionaries, San Antonio became a military garrison in 1718, and was settled by the Anglos in the 1720s and 1730s under Austin's colonization program. It is most famous for the legendary Battle of the Alamo in 1836, when the Mexican General Santa Anna, seeking to curb the aspirations of the Anglo-Americans, wiped out a band of Texan volunteers: hence San Antonio's claim to be the "birthplace of the revolution," borne out by its role during Texas's ten subsequent years of independence. After the Civil War, it became a hard-drinking, hard-fighting "sin city," at the heart of the Texas cattle and oil empires. Drastic floods in the 1920s wiped out much of the downtown area, but the sensitive WPA program which revitalized two of the city's prettiest sites, La Villita and the River Walk , laid the foundations for its future as a major tourist destination. San Antonio is now the eighth largest city in the US, but it retains an unhurried, organic feel, thanks to a winning combination of small town warmth, respect for diversity and a self-confidence rooted in its own history.

San Antonio Texas - The Town
Since mission times, the San Antonio River has been the key to the city's fortunes. Destructive floods in the 1920s, and subsequent oil drilling, reduced its flow, leading to plans to pave the river over. Instead, a careful landscaping scheme, started in 1939 by the WPA, created the Paseo del Rio, or River Walk , now the aesthetic and commercial focus of San Antonio. Below street level, the walk is reached by steps from various spots along the main roads and crossed by humpbacked stone bridges. Cobbled paths, lined with tropical plants and shaded by pine, cypress, oak and willow, wind for two and a half miles (twenty-one blocks) beside the jade-green water, with much of the city's eating and entertainment concentrated along the way. You can catch a river taxi at a number of places, but strolling is cheaper and just as much fun, for the view of the river slowly changing character between the lively Rivercenter Mall and the quieter, more park-like outskirts.

While the Alamo is the main attraction in the downtown area, the surreal Buckhorn Museum , 318 E Houston St (Sun-Thurs 10am-5pm, Fri & Sat 10am-6pm; $8.99), takes a pleasingly kitsch look at Americana. During San Antonio's heyday as a cowtown, cowboys, trappers and traders would bring their cattle horns to the original Buckhorn Saloon in exchange for a drink. The entire bar has been transplanted to this downtown location, which boasts an extra floor of exhibition space and, as well as thousands of horns on display, mounted as trophies, chandeliers and chairs, there are many stuffed animals, including "Blondie", an unforgettable two-headed lamb.

La Villita ("little town"), on the River Walk opposite Hemisfair Park, was San Antonio's original settlement, occupied in the mid- to late eighteenth century by Mexican "squatters" with no titles to the land. Only when its elevation enabled it to survive fierce floods in 1819 did this rude collection of stone and adobe buildings become suddenly respectable. It is now a National Historic District, turned over to a dubious "arts community" consisting mostly of overpriced craftshops (daily 10am-6pm). It's at its best off-season or at dusk, when the crowds dwindle and the muted colors, smells and noises are more evocative of earlier times. In contrast, the 25-block King William Historic District southwest, between the river and S St Mary's Street, contains the elegant late nineteenth-century homes of German merchants. A pleasant incongruity in this Mexican-feeling city, it remains a fashionable residential area and has some stylish B&Bs.

The best of several museums in HemisFair Park is the Institute of Texan Cultures , 801 S Bowie St (Tues-Sun 9am-5pm; $5), which maps the social histories of 26 diverse "Texan" cultures, with especially pertinent African-American and Native American sections, and an intriguing corner devoted to short-lived attempts to introduce the camel to West Texas as a beast of burden. The Mexican Cultural Institute (daily 10am-5pm; free) recently underwent a mammoth renovation, expanding into seven gallery spaces and a theatre, while retaining its focus on historic and contemporary Mexican art. The ugly 750ft Tower of the Americas is devoid of interest, save for the views from its observation deck (Sun-Thurs 9am-10 pm, Fri & Sat 9am-11pm; $3).

West of the river at 115 Main Plaza, the 1731 San Fernando Cathedral is the oldest cathedral in the US, though, contrary to the claims of the tourist board, nobody really believes that the Alamo heroes are buried here. Mariachi Masses are held on Saturday at 5.15pm, when crowds overflow onto the plaza. Two blocks west at 105 Plaza de Armas, the beautifully simple whitewashed Spanish Governors Palace (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 10am-5pm; $1.50) was once home to Spanish officials during the mission era. Just one story tall, it's hardly a palace, but its flagstone floors, low doorways and beamed ceilings, religious icons and ornate wooden carvings give it a wonderful atmosphere, and it provides an illuminating glimpse of the lifestyles of the civil and religious authorities in this remote outpost. Don't miss the sweet cobbled courtyard, with its fountain, mosaic floor and lush palms.

Market Square (daily: summer 10am-8pm; rest of year 10am-6pm), a couple of blocks further northwest, dates from 1840. Its outdoor restaurants and bustle are still at the heart of the city's life; fruit and vegetables are on sale early in the morning, while the shops are a compelling mix of color and kitsch. El Mercado , an indoor complex, is meant to resemble a traditional Mexican market, selling tourist-oriented gifts, jewelry and oddities. A few of the shops are great, even if the air conditioning and piped music undermine the authenticity of the venture.

It's also worth getting to the beautiful McNay Art Museum , 6000 N New Braunfels Ave at Austin Highway (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; free). This exquisite Moorish-style villa, complete with tranquil garden, was built in the 1950s to house the art collection of millionaire and folk artist Marion Koogler McNay, which includes modern sculpture, Gothic and medieval works, as well as a sprinkling of major players (Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh). Buses #11 (Nacogdoches) and #14 (Thousand Oaks) serve the museum from downtown. On the way there, bus #11 passes the San Antonio Museum of Art , 200 W Jones Ave (Tues 10am-9pm, Wed-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; $5, free on Tues 3-9pm), which occupies the old Lone Star Brewery, but it's the added Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art wing that holds most interest, with its particularly fine exhibit on folk art.
Exploring San Antonio Texas
The Alamo (tel 210/225-1391, ) is the most famous - for reasons that have nothing to do with its original purpose - of a trail of Catholic missions established by the Spanish along remote stretches of the San Antonio River early in the eighteenth century. San Antonio's most distinctive landmark, it is smack in the center of downtown, but for a real sense of early Spanish influence in Texas, it's important to make an effort to get out and see the more distant, less visited missions. Each was laid out like a small fortified town, with the church as aesthetic and cultural focus. The goal was to strengthen Spanish control by "converting" the indigenous Coahuiltecan - in practice, using them as workforce and army. The missions flourished from 1745 to 1775, but couldn't survive the ravages of disease and attack from the Apache and Comanche, and fell into disuse early in the nineteenth century. To get a sense of the history of the Alamo, you could head first for the nearby Rivercenter Mall , where the battle is re-enacted on a six-story, Texas-scale IMAX screen (call 210/225-4629 for showtimes; $8.95); fact and sentiment may converge during the 45-minute presentation, but it takes a callous viewer not to be affected by the rousing patriotism of the finale.

The main visitor center (daily 9am-5pm; tel 210/932-1001) for the string of missions is next to Mission San Jose and contains a movie theater, small museum and giftshop.

The Alamo
All that is left of the original fort of the Alamo, at the meeting of Houston, Crockett, Bonham and Alamo streets, is the chapel, with a large arched facade of delicately carved sandstone, and the Long Barracks, now a museum Monday - Saturday 9am-5.30pm, Sun 10am-5.30pm free. The first of the Spanish missions, established as San Antonio de Valero in 1718, it only became known as the Pueblo del Alamo in 1801, after secularization, when it was named for the Mexican home town of a Spanish cavalry unit which used it as a base. The battle , immortalized in film and song, occurred on March 6, 1836, when all of the 189 men who had held out for thirteen days against the five thousand strong Mexican troops were killed, a massacre dismissed by the Mexican General Santa Anna as but a small affair. The rebels consisted of a few native, Hispanic Texans, and a majority of volunteers adventurers like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, and aspiring colonists from other states, dreaming of Texan autonomy and driven by the battle cry of "Victory or Death!".

Though a constant stream of bus tours makes visits crowded and hectic, seeing the Alamo is crucial to understanding Texan pride and stubbornness. The battle memorabilia in the chapel is undeniably emotive, with poignant letters sent home by soldiers preparing to die, and the Long Barracks Museum, hidden away southwest of the shrines main entrance, presents a 20 minute video on the history of the missions and the battle. Take time also to sit in peace in the four acre grounds, a haven from the downtown commotion just outside the walls, dotted with lush blooms, palms and cacti, and holding an irrigation ditch filled with fat fish.

Texas Tourism Guides: Dallas Hotels, Houston Hotels, Austin Hotels and San Antonio Hotels Discounts
Dallas Hotels San Antonio Hotels Austin Hotels Austin Texas Hotels Hotels in Austin Hotels in Austin TX Hotels Austin Texas Austin Texas Austin Hotels Austin Texas Hotels Hotels in Austin Hotels in Austin TX Hotels Austin Texas Austin Hotels Austin Texas Austin Texas Airport Hotels Omni Austin Hotel Omni Hotel Austin Texas Omni Hotel Austin Omni Austin Hotel Omni Hotel Austin Texas Omni Hotel Austin San Antonio Hotels Austin Hotels Austin Texas Hotels Austin Texas Texas Austin Dallas Texas Ft. Worth Texas Galveston Houston San Antonio Texas Tourism