San Antonio Texas, USA

Jamey did the Riverwalk and the rest of it back in college, and then with the band he was in and out of San Antonio for years, which means load in, play, load out, and see nothing. So this was the first real look in a long time, and the town has changed a lot. It’s so thoughtful now: great public spaces everywhere, so much good food, and the Riverwalk vibe is just fun. It was way cleaner and nicer than we imagined. There used to be a busy street running right in front of the Alamo; the city closed it in 2021 and it’s a plaza now, and the whole site finally makes sense. The Pearl turned an old brewery into the best afternoon in the city. This isn’t a flight. It’s four and a half hours from our driveway. That’s the whole argument for it.

Where we stayed

Kimpton Santo is the reason this weekend worked. It sits on South Alamo with the river between you and everything, and the staff were super friendly, the kind you notice. The manager did nice things for the girls: stuffed animals waiting for them and a canvas teepee set up in their room. The rooftop pool with the cabanas and the skyline is where we were every afternoon, Jamey launching JJ as high as she’d go, and it’s an elevator ride from the room. There’s a coffee bar in the morning and a complimentary social hour in the evening, and ask about a late checkout on your IHG number when you check in. The thing the girls will tell you about is the paletas, the craft Mexican popsicles the hotel had out, which they were obsessed with. If they need more, Paletería San Antonio is next door at 510 S Alamo, scratch-made, $4, add chamoy or gummies for a dollar.

Friday night, on the river

Check in, swim, then walk. Dinner was Domingo at the Canopy by Hilton, twelve minutes up the river path, South Texas cooking on an open-air patio at water level. It replaced the Buffalo Blue plan, the first thing we scrapped off the doc, and it was the better call. The walk home is the Riverwalk at its best: after dark it’s a different river, cooler, fully lit, and the girls walked the path under the bridges and through the red-lit tunnel most of the way back. Do it at night. Skip eating on the main horseshoe, which is a wall of chains at river-view prices, and walk it instead. The stretch nearest the hotel runs through La Villita past the Arneson River Theatre, grass steps on one bank and the stage across the water, and that’s the prettiest few hundred yards of the whole loop.

The day we’d tell you to copy

Saturday. Breakfast is your call; Schilo’s, a German deli open since 1917 with its own root beer, is seven minutes from the door and the one we’d try next time. Be at the Alamo for the 10:30 musket firing. Hilarious but cool, in that order: a living-history guy in an 1830s outfit walking a crowd of kids through a flintlock, then firing it. Loud. Stand toward the back the first time with a younger one. The Church itself is free too, but you need a timed ticket booked ahead, one per person including kids. We met our friends from Kerrville there, which works because nothing about the Alamo morning is on a clock except that one 10:30.

Then drive ten minutes to the Pearl and park in the Oxbow garage, $7 for the afternoon, paid by plate in the LAZ app. The Pearl Farmers Market runs 9 to 1 on Saturdays under the oaks, real farmers and ranchers, and the 1:00 close is the day’s second clock. We ate at the Food Hall at Bottling Department, the old bottling building with a handful of counters around one air-conditioned room. We got burgers from Henbit, smashburgers on Peeler Farms beef, though it’s billed as a limited-time counter, so it may have moved on by the time you go. Four people, four counters, nobody negotiating. Do this at least once with kids. Then the girls found the pavement geysers on the lawn in the Park at Pearl and stayed until they were soaked. Bring a change of clothes in the car. Back to the hotel for the pool by 2:30, because the heat index peaks from 3 to 5 and the rooftop is the only sane place to be.

Dinner at La Fonda on Main at 7:30, San Antonio’s oldest Mexican restaurant, open since 1932 in a Spanish Revival house. Ask for the Lower Patio, the courtyard under the big tree with the lights strung through it. We asked, we got it, and it was the best table we sat at all weekend. OpenTable takes parties up to six; for more, phone (210) 733-0621, and on a holiday weekend phone anyway.

Sunday, Hemisfair to El Mercado

Hemisfair is next door to the hotel, so Sunday morning we walked over. Box St. All Day hosts a Sunday Brunch Market in the park from 10 to 4, vendor tents under the trees, and Yanaguana Garden has the big blue slide and a shallow water feature the girls waded in. We had brunch at Box St., the trendy spot, and it was just okay. Fine, not a rec.

Then Historic Market Square, El Mercado, three blocks of Mexican market the city calls the largest outside Mexico, and on a Sunday it was hopping. Papel picado over the street, agua fresca jugs on the corner, and the girls went shopping and came out with marionettes. We got treats at Mi Tierra, the panadería counter at the front before the host stand. Pan dulce in a clamshell. Two things to know. Go past the counter to see the “American Dream” mural in the back room, a hundred-plus portraits by Jesús Garza. And it’s not the 24-hour place the old guides still say it is; it closes around 10 or 11 now.

That night we ate at the hotel, which sounds like a cop-out and wasn’t. Dean’s Steak & Seafood sits inside the old schoolhouse rooms, and it was amazing: a shrimp cocktail the girls gawked at, bone marrow, a killer steak, and a torched-meringue pie at the end. Then Mel and Jamey went up to Tenfold, the open-air rooftop bar, while the girls crashed in the connecting room next door.

What we didn’t get to

Two things, both because of us. The GO RIO river boat is 35 minutes and about $17, and we’ll ride it next time. And Natural Bridge Caverns, a constant 70 degrees underground thirty to forty minutes north, was sold out when we tried to book it. Tickets are timed and the price only goes up as the date gets closer, so buy them online the week before, not the morning of. Both are at the top of the list for the next trip, which will not be in September.