We spent Christmas in San Antonio. Of course, we had to take a Christmas photo of our traveling companions.
There are 5 historic Spanish missions in town; the most famous is the Alamo. The other 4 are managed by the National Park Service. We rode the bike trail along the San Antonio river to visit three of them. Here’s an exterior photo of Mission Espada’s main church and bell tower. Notice the moorish arch over the door. (The Moors occupied Spain for a long time and greatly influenced their architecture.) The story is that the stone mason got angry and quit in the middle of the job, leaving his apprentice to finish the arch, resulting in the peculiar shape.
The largest and most fully restored mission is San Jose. The walls of the mission have been restored, as well as the church, a gristmill, a granary, and a few rooms used for living. The church has ornate carvings on the exterior and a beautifully decorated sacristy.
At Mission San Jose we joined a ranger-led tour which focused on the impact of the Spanish on the First People. The Spanish wanted them to be citizens of Spain as a way of holding territory. Other Europeans sent their own people to colonize the New World, but few Spaniards wanted to settle here because their standing in society was partly dependent on the distance between their birthplace and the center of Spain. The mission system was designed to create Spanish citizens by converting them to Catholicism, teaching them Spanish and Latin, and teaching them a trade so they could pay taxes to the king. The system completely changed their way of life, their family relationships, and the food they ate. Their teenage sons became the first vaqueros, because their jobs were on the mission ranch, protecting the livestock from outsiders.
Another day we hopped a bus to the King William historic district. It was established in the 1860s by wealthy German merchants, who built gorgeous homes of native limestone or brick. The locals referred to the area as “Sauerkraut Bend”. Many of the homes have been restored. We spent a pleasant couple of hours walking through the area admiring the architecture.
We decided to visit the Riverwalk to see the Christmas lights. We planned to walk around in the afternoon, then stay into the evening. It got cold and rain was threatening, so we left after a walk around and a visit to the Briscoe Western Art Museum. The museum is a beautiful building and much of the art is sculptures and paintings with Old West themes. We were amazed to see a scale model of Santa Ana attacking the Alamo in one gallery, a collection of spurs in a second, and a full sized stagecoach in another. Texans have an interesting definition of the word “art”.
