Remember the Alamo — where Texas independence was born in a 1836 siege, the 2.5-mile River Walk winds through a tropical canyon of restaurants and cafes 20 feet below street level, five 18th-century Spanish colonial missions line the San Antonio River in a UNESCO World Heritage chain, and the largest Mexican-American city in Texas has been cooking Tex-Mex for 200 years
San Antonio (1.5 million; metro 2.6 million) is the seventh-largest city in the United States and the cultural heart of Texas — the city where Texas independence began (the 1836 Battle of the Alamo), where Spanish colonial mission architecture survives in five UNESCO-listed churches, and where the fusion of Mexican and Texan cultures produced Tex-Mex cuisine (chili con carne invented here in the 1880s by the 'Chili Queens' of Military Plaza). The River Walk (Paseo del Río, 2.5 miles of walkways 20 feet below street level along the San Antonio River) is the most visited tourist attraction in T…
San Antonio was founded as a Spanish colonial mission settlement on 13 June 1718 (feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua, hence the name) — Mission San Antonio de Valero (later known as the Alamo), Mission San José, Mission Concepción, Mission San Juan, and Mission Espada were all established along the San Antonio River by 1731 and together form the San Antonio Missions UNESCO World Heritage Site (2015). The Battle of the Alamo (23 February–6 March 1836) was a 13-day siege in which approximately 189–257 Texian defenders (including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett) held the Alamo against approximately…