Our Itinerary (February 16-18, 2013)
Saturday, February 16
We arrived in San Antonio around 11:00am and jumped right into a cab to go to Ruckman Haus Bed and Breakfast. We were immediately impressed with its beautiful, ivy-covered exterior. Prudence, the mistress of the house, greeted us and gave us a quick orientation of the place. Our immaculately clean and cozy room - the English Room - was ready so we dropped off our things and then set out for lunch.
Before I get into the day's activities, I'll say that staying at Ruckman Haus was a good experience. I wouldn't put it at the top of my list or at the bottom. It was probably one of the more architecturally interesting houses we've stayed in and the breakfasts were quite elaborate and delicious! The downside? I slept terribly and it had nothing to do with the bed, which was the perfect amount of soft and firm. The house is a few blocks from the train tracks and the trains run every hour, including in the middle of the night. And the conductors or engineers or whoever drives the damn things would sit on the horn. I'm not a light sleeper but that noise couldn't be ignored. Also, the house is not within walking distance to any of the major attractions. You either have to rent a car, cab, or use public transportation. Out of pure laziness we chose to cab to the major attractions and then did a lot of walking from there.
We walked about five to six blocks to La Fonda on Main for lunch. As you might imagine, we were quite hungry after our flight. Something I was most looking forward to about being in San Antonio was sampling the Mexican food. Since San Antonio used to be part of Mexico and the cultural link is still strong (Prudence mentioned that the population is 70% Hispanic) we expected some really good food!
La Fonda serves kind of "upscale" Mexican food. It's probably the best we had during our three-day weekend. I ordered "Cappy's Favorite", which includes nopal (or cacti) rice. I'd never had that before and it was quite tasty.
After lunch we called a cab and headed in the direction of the Japanese Tea Garden. Interestingly, the archway leading inside the Japanese Tea Garden says "Chinese Tea Garden". After the bombing at Pearl Harbor when anti-Japanese sentiment was at its worst they changed the name. Interesting!
The Gardens are quite small so you can walk around the entire thing in just a few minutes. It just so happened that while we were there a military wedding was taking place. What a lovely setting for a small ceremony.
After a very quick visit (it was crowded so we didn't want to hang around) we walked about a block to this barbeque place called Augie's Barbed Wire. We were still full from lunch but our cabbie on the way over said that we had to go this place because it was the best barbeque in town. We split a pork barbeque sandwich with a side of macaroni and cheese. It may very well be the best barbeque in town but neither of us liked the "smoky" taste of the meat and the macaroni was drowning in cheese.
Then we cabbed to the Pearl Brewery, an up and coming combination residential/commercial kind of place. They're moving at a very slow pace but I'm sure that once all of the empty lots are bought and filled, it will be a hot-spot. Currently, they have a couple of food options, a book store, an Aveda store, the Culinary Institute of America, and a few boutiques. It's also the northernmost and newest (?) section of the Riverwalk.
Despite being told the walk would be too long we decided to ignore the advice we were given and follow the path toward the main/middle section of the Riverwalk near Downtown. It turned out to be a 1.5-2 mile trek - not a big deal!
We saw some really cool artwork along the way. Different artists have installations in place at the many bridges along the Riverwalk.
The Riverwalk was certainly the highlight of the day, the trip, and the city.
Once night started to fall we thought we should settle down and get something to eat. Well, the Riverwalk was PACKED and every restaurant had an hour+ wait. We also got the impression that the main part of the Riverwalk had mostly chain/touristy restaurants so we figured we weren't missing out on too much.
We ended up cabbing back to La Fonda for dinner - hey, if it ain't broke...? We weren't starving so we ended up splitting their Land and Sea entree, which was quite decadent.
When we returned to the B&B we wiled away the evening with Spot, their outdoor cat.
Sunday, February 17
Our first stop this morning was the Alamo - the quintessential San Antonio landmark. We were surprised at how small it was but upon further reading discovered that the famous facade of the Alamo was a chapel that was one part of a larger mission. I believe that a lot of it was destroyed in battle. I must confess that we didn't stay to read a lot of the placards or even look at some of the small exhibits. It was quite crowded and a little claustrophobic so we took a picture and proceeded with our day.
Today was our heaviest walking day and from the Alamo we walked in a mostly straight line to the Main Plaza and San Fernando Cathedral.
From there we continued our walk to Market Square or El Mercado. It's a "little Mexico" with restaurants, street food, and lots of shops selling handicrafts and other souvenirs.
After exploring a little bit and splitting a gordita we headed back toward the Riverwalk for lunch. There was a place, Acenar, we had seen the day before and that a couple at our B&B had recommended over breakfast so we thought we'd give it a try. It's away from the hoopla of the main section so we thought it might not be as touristy as some of the other restaurants.
We sat outside so that we could look at the Riverwalk but the downside was that we had some very aggressively hungry birds diving into our chip bowl. It's funny in hindsight and normally, I wouldn't have a problem feeding the birds but I also didn't want any stray poop flying into my drink! At some point we had our server take away the chips. We weren't very impressed with their salsa, anyway.
Evan got tacos and I got a delicious pork tenderloin dish.
It was a pretty decent lunch but kind of pricey. Honestly, I found most of our meals to be moderately expensive. Maybe that's because Evan kept ordering alcohol. Haha.
After lunch we paid a visit to La Villita, which is a little enclave where artists have set up shop. It's not far from an outdoor theater that was featured in Miss Congeniality.
We took our time making our way from the main part of the Riverwalk back to the Pearl Brewery, where we had spotted a restaurant we wanted to try for dinner.
When we got back to the Pearl Brewery it was close to dusk and the few shops there were closed. Our food spot - La Gloria - had an hour+ wait so we kind of hunkered down in the open-air part of the main building. Despite the weather being perfect all day the evening proved to be a little windy and chilly.
When we finally got to eat dinner we were a little disappointed. We gathered that this was a popular and authentic Mexican street food place so we expected something pretty spectacular. Our fountain soda drinks were really watered down and we barely picked up any heat from the lamps near our table. The chips and salsa were good but when we got our entrees we were kind of surprised. Evan ordered tacos, which really should've been called taquitos. They were tiny, more like an appetizer. I got a Mexican pizza, which was good but not presented in a way that was easy to eat. For the most part, I thought it was bland.
We cabbed home from there and tried to come up with things to do for our last day.
Monday, February 18
By our third day we sort of felt like we had run out of things to do. We knew that the Rodeo was in town and since that's "so Texas" we thought we'd see what it was all about.
We cabbed all the way over to the AT&T Center and discovered once we go there that the main event wasn't until 7:00pm that night. Bummer. We were pretty disappointed and also, at a loss for what we would do with our time there. There was some grounds entertainment so we explored a bit by going into the petting zoo tent.
After that, there wasn't much more else we wanted to waste money or time on so we called another cab with the intention of rooting around for food back at the Riverwalk. Instead, our cabbie recommended we go back to Market Square and eat at Mi Tierra. It's a really popular place and according to our cabbie, there are no locks on the doors because the place never closes.
We had some great chips and salsa and then ordered two of the house specialities. We both enjoyed our dishes but I didn't necessarily see what made it more authentic than some of the other Mexican we had during our trip or even Mexican that we've had in our home state. I think we need to go back to Mexico and make a real comparison!
Afterward we got back on the Riverwalk and this time, took a route we hadn't taken before. We walked beyond the main section toward the King William Historic District. We saw some beautiful homes in an area that was mostly inhabited by German immigrants.
At that point it was late afternoon and we debated about whether we should pay a visit to the Missions Trail, which is not walkable because it's four or five missions that make up three+ miles. We thought about cabbing to one of the missions and then heading home. We reviewed our cash stash and weren't sure we could make it to a mission and back to the B&B so ultimately, we decided to go "home".
We spent a couple of the afternoon hours sitting in the shade of the backyard with our friend, Spot.
For dinner we walked to Caparelli's on Main, which is just across the street from La Fonda. The meal started out promising enough with some Italian wedding soup and garlic bread and then fresh salad. Our entrees, however, were not that impressive. I got the lasagna, which was too cheesy and didn't have enough meat for my taste. Evan wasn't thrilled with his cheese manicotti either. Evan did enjoy his spumoni for dessert and I loved the Boston creme-pie cheesecake.
We finished our evening with some crap TV and prepared for our journey home the next morning.
...
All in all, we had a nice time. I did find that we ran out of things to do rather quickly so in retrospect, I might've planned for us to rent a car and take a road-trip to Austin our third day. The weather was a real treat considering how cold it was back home but I certainly wasn't prepared for the strength of the sun. I got burnt! I didn't notice a lot of Southern or Texas charm and I don't mean that people weren't friendly, they were, but I didn't notice a lot of native accents. I imagine that there are a lot of transplants in the area due to the large military presence. It wasn't the most exciting getaway we've had but certainly not the most uneventful either. I wasn't wowed by the cuisine so that was a mild disappointment. That being said, I'm glad we went and got to have taste of what San Antonio has to offer. If we return to Texas in the future I'd like to spend time in Austin.
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