San Antonio Travel Guide, Texas

'Fiesta City' and the 'Alamo City' are two ways people call San Antonio because there are two major things you can find here: fun and Texas's history, a history that reveals the city’s multiculturalism.

Founded before Texas won its independence from Mexico, San Antonio was home to different groups: Spanish, German, Southern plantation owners, Western cattle ranchers, and Eastern architects. Their presence has molded the city's culture and cuisine.

With so many influences San Antonio's cultural life is mixed and diverse. You can feel this everywhere in the city especially during festivals when you will listen to a unique blend of Mexican and German sounds, drink German beer, cheer rodeo bull riders, eat Mexican tacos, Texan barbecue and Southern hush puppies.

The multicultural heritage can also be seen in the city's architecture, a mix of East Coast Victorian gingerbread facades, German pitched roofs and southern Greek columns. The Hill Country look combines Texas ranch features with more intricate German details. But now the tendency is to preserve and return to its Hispanic architectural roots and several buildings have red-clay roofs, Saltillo tile floors, and central patios.

The development the city went through made it difficult to preserve its past, many highways, faceless houses and homogeneous restaurant were built. Still all these could not erase the historical and cultural heritage of the city as it would not have been for anybody’s interest. As every city San Antonio has to preserve its past, has to have something special that defines it if not for cultural reasons at least for economic reasons. People who come to San Antonio remember mostly the winding downtown streets and the beautiful river.

Keeping past heritage and not stopping the development of the city San Antonio assures every tourist will find something to his taste. All you need is look for it and you can find so many interesting attractions and events that you will find it hard to decide where to begin and even cover them all.

There are sights you can cover on foot for those who like walking and for others you will need a car or use one of the inexpensive tourist transportation lines that will take you even to farther spots like: Sea World - San Antonio and Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Visit them and you will offer your kid a wonderful time. They'll also like interactive Witte Museum and the Zoo where in the children's area they will be allowed to feed the fish and the ducks. At the San Antonio Public Library there is a branch where kids can learn how to use their own catalogs and search tools, watch puppet shows and listen to stories.

For visitors it is good to know that the city is divided in two parts. Downtown is the main walkable tourist area together with the River Walk that boasts with beautiful old buildings, hotels, restaurants, and shops. And the other part is quite spread out toward the northwest. Here you will find the Dominion Country Club, South Texas Medical Center complex, the Six Flags Fiesta Texas theme park and the Westin La Cantera Resort. The southwest region hosts the Kelly and Lackland Air Force Bases, Brackenridge Park attractions and some of the best restaurants and shops in town.

Whichever part of the city you fancy come to sit on the banks of a sparkling river and sip cactus margaritas, view Franciscan missions that rose along the river, taste the multicultural diversity of the city and enjoy this destination that everyone would like to visit at least once in their lifetime.

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• The best bars of San Antonio
  review by mohds2 posted more then 30 days ago
  Drawing on the rich cultural inheritance, nightlife in San Antonio’s reflects various influences at work in this city from the country western to Mexican and European. If you are in search of a place to just to grab a drink, there are lots of bars along River Walk also along the North St....

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Read our members' travel tips about San Antonio

• San Antonio Botanical Garden
  travel tip by Malika posted more then 30 days ago
  I've always enjoyed visiting botanical gardens, they can provide such a fascinating surrounding even in a really busy city. So it was understandable that while in town, I would visit the San Antonio Botanical Garden. And once again,...
• Las Canarias Restaurant
  travel tip by evike14 posted more then 30 days ago
  Right on the Riverwalk, the Las Canarias Restaurant serves one of the finest Mexican foods you'll eat in San Antonio. Their staff is really great, though sometimes slow on delivering, but that didn't really bother us, we were...
• McNay Art Museum
  travel tip by Johan posted more then 30 days ago
  Though with a smaller collection than other Art Museums, the McNay Art Museum is a small treasure chest of artworks of the past 2 centuries. Only a few paintings or sculptures of famous names such as Cezanne or Picasso can be found here,...

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