Travelling through time in Texas

As I write this, I’m recuperating from what’s been the busiest day on my trip to Texas, starting off by exploring human history and ending with a journey even further back in time.

Our team met with local tour guide Toni Sanders of Happy Trails Tour Company for breakfast at the historic Guenther House, a popular San Antonio restaurant and museum once owned by a German family which founded the Pioneer Flour business, still in operation today with the factory’s buildings not far from Guenther House. Not surprisingly, the restaurant’s pancakes and biscuits are made with the flour processed just a few blocks away. The Guenther House is located in the city’s King William District, a neighbourhood of historic homes originally populated by German immigrants which came to the city in the 1860s which Sanders credits with bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to San Antonio. A walking tour of the neighbourhood reveals rows of mansions, many of which went through a period of disrepair in the mid 20th century, restored in the 1960s by local investor Walter Nobles Mathis, who sought to revitalize the neighbourhood by purchasing and restoring 15 of the residences.

Going back more than a century before the first homes were built in King William District, a stop at Missions National Historic Park explored the first Spanish settlements built in what would one day become San Antonio. Constructed by the Spanish rulers of what was then known as Northern Mexico with the goal of converting local Native Americans to Catholicism, several missions were built over 80 years beginning in the 1720s, the best preserved being Mission San Jose and its infamous ‘Rose Window’ feature, a design since adopted as a symbol of San Antonio seen in shop windows, brickwork and even the logo of the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau. No trip to the city would be complete without a visit to the Alamo, the northernmost mission building now surrounded by the city’s modern downtown area. History seems to spring to life stepping inside those limestone walls, where 200 frontiersmen held out against 2,500 Mexican soldiers over nearly two weeks in March 1836 before being overrun and killed by their attackers, an event which lead to Texas winning its independence as a sovereign country later that year. According to Sal Garza of the San Antonio CVB, the popularity of the missions as tourist attractions is set to increase even more, with a designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the entire national park expected to be confirmed in June.

Before leaving San Antonio for the Hill Country, we briefly returned to the present and visited the Pearl District for lunch, a series of shops and restaurants (including a branch of the Culinary Institute of America) established on the grounds of a former brewery, a concept similar to Toronto’s Distillery District.

Heading north out of the city, the landscape gives way from urban features to green slopes and wildflowers, an area known as the Hill Country where our next destination, the town of Fredericksburg, is nestled. The German influence from San Antonio is evident here too, seen in the downtown shops and restaurants (more about that tomorrow). After settling in, we then ventured out to what would arguably be the peak (literally) of our time in Texas: a cowboy cookout – chuckwagon, beans and all – in the shadow of Enchanted Rock, an ancient granite formation towering above the Hill Country’s tallest slopes. Doug Cochran, Enchanted Rock’s park superintendent, told PAX that the 1,600-acre property is the sixth most visited of Texas’ more than 90 state parks, drawing a record 45,000 visitors in the peak month of March this year.

And now, after a steak dinner with all the trimmings, it was our turn to hike to the top of Enchanted Rock.

While the climb is steep in parts, and talk of rattlesnakes makes one check their steps a little more closely, the view from the top on even an overcast evening is beyond words and well worth the trek to view the surrounding countryside from up high – even if the trip down in the dark makes things interesting.

Tomorrow: We’re back in the present day and exploring Fredericksburg and its reputation as a growing wine destination.