After leaving Texas’ most populous city, Houston, we stayed en route to the second most populous city, San Antonio, at Schulenburg. Anna’s research had identified this Interstate stop off as quaint with painted German churches. On arrival a quick drive around revealed a ramshackle settlement that may be described as a ‘one horse town’ but ‘ohne pferd’. (One for Google Translate.) Also no painted churches that we could see. On the evening we found an Italian restaurant close by the hotel and then had an early night.

Next morning the Interstate took us to the centre of San Antonio and the Downtown area that also housed the Alamo. The Downtown area is built up but it features an exquisite set of canals that dissect restaurants and hotels. In the sunshine it looked wonderful. It seems that all these hotels accommodate conference attendees that flood into the town and conference centres. 

Nearby the Alamo was a fort that was built by the Spanish, then occupied by the Mexicans and then the Texans or Texians (as the Republic of Texas knew its citizens.) The Mexicans via a siege in February 1836 and subsequent attack retook the fort and the church with all the Texian defenders killed. They then went onto murder other combatants (a total of about 200). This proved to be a call to arms for all Texians as well as men from outside the State for the next battle. Weeks later the Mexican army met the Texians at San Jacinto and this time the Mexicans were routed with considerable loss of life (650) but little for the Texians (11). Here the Texians, via treaty, gained their independence and the Mexicans struggled home. The reality was that the Mexicans thought they’d recover Texas in due course, of course we know they didn’t.

So this location is important to Texans as a vital yet bloody event in their achievement of independence. The ‘money shot’ is the outside of the church, in the then fort grounds. On this day there were many tourists and most spoke Spanish. 

In Texas any signage is in English and Spanish. In hospitality or retail the staff are South American. I say South American rather than Mexican because I think this Latino workforce comes from Central American countries as well as Mexico. Go into Walmart and the shoppers are Latino or go to an attraction the visitors are Latino. In one hotel I asked a member of staff for something and she didn’t speak English. She whipped out her mobile phone and we found the Spanish for ‘butter’ via a translation App. Employment here doesn’t demand the ability to speak English obviously. I once was told by an American guy whose family was from El Salvador that within decades Spanish would be the most popular language in the USA. I believe him.

Wondering around the centre we found an Indian restaurant for lunch before heading to the suburbs to our hotel. Driving in this city of 1.5 million people was no fun. Some of the roads and gradients wouldn’t be out of place in a theme park. Cars regularly took the ramps/turnings off or joined. It made you continually vigilant of vehicles swapping lanes at high speeds and trying to avoid being stuck on pesky exit roads when they diverted off the main route. After check-in I ventured out to sort out a SIM card problem and find a record store. Both were successful missions and I got some new country music vinyl at $8 and $3 each. In the UK this would be £30 a pop. It has to be said such bargains were unusual.

The next day we visited the Botanical Gardens. These were meh! I love a botanical garden. Mainly for the trees, shade and non-indigenous blooms. This newer site had no trees bar a few in a Japanese garden and there were some flowers, especially the orchids and roses that looked lovely but otherwise it wasn’t a memorable garden.

The night was. We attended a concert about 15 miles away from our hotel and so another white knuckle drive on the road system took us there. Any music on a hot summer’s evening outside with a beer seems a great idea and this was a holiday highlight – Ashley McBryde.