Surprise Surprise! I am back traveling across the United States with my significant other Sajal during the covid-19 pandemic!! If you've been following my blog, my journey started with a 2 month trip to Hawaii in July and August followed by a 1 month trip to Boston from September to October. After Boston, Sajal and I stayed with our family until after Christmas to celebrate the holidays with them. After Boston, Sajal and I spent 2 weeks in Atlanta and then 1 week in New Orleans. We have finally arrived in Austin, Texas where we plan to spend the next month!
Though we are traveling, Sajal and I are very cautious by wearing masks, social distancing, and using lots of hand sanitizer. We are exploring, but we also want to be safe. Part of this measure was deciding to drive everywhere. We eventually want to spend a month or so in San Diego, and so we decided to take our time driving there, breaking up the drives in 7-8 hour chunks. While we are in Austin, we plan to explore the nearby cities as well. The first one we chose to explore was San Antonio which was about an hour and a half from where we are staying.
I didn't know what exactly to expect from San Antonio, but it was absolutely amazing!!!!!! So far San Antonio is my second favorite city that I have visited so far (after Hawaii of course). We drove to San Antonio and went straight for the river walk. Now, I have visited a lot of river walks: Austin, D.C., Tampa. But this river walk is something else entirely. The whole atmosphere and architecture felt very European and Spanish. We parked at the gigantic mall which was connected to the river walk itself. The river is lined with restaurants, bars, shops, apartments, and hotels. There was even an outdoor amphitheater right on the river, with the audience on one side and the performance on the other.
There were beautiful bridges that connected one bank of the river to the other. Having been to Venice, I can say that it felt like a smaller version of that.
The river was very large which allowed for a wonderful walk along the river. The river actually cuts through downtown. The river was almost below or under the city. Once you walked up the stairs, you wouldn't even know that there was a river below the city at all! You can see the map of the river below.
We took a boat tour on the river with Go Rio SA. The boat ride was about 30 minutes long. They took us all up and down the river explaining historical sites, showing us cool buildings, and telling us where the best places to eat were. It was a very informative but fun ride. Here's a picture of us that we took on the boat.
We also had the best time exploring the riverwalk. We saw some mosaic wall art, this man-made super long waterfall, and just some super cool architecture. Sajal sometimes said that he didn't even feel like we were in the United States anymore. The picture below is this beautiful small waterfall that we found under one of the bridges!
We also had fun exploring the mall as well! The mall has 2 movie theaters and so many shops! The best part about San Antonio is the River Walk and it is just so amazing how well it is planned out and how amazing the feeling is when you are there. If you're in Texas, I highly recommend you go to San Antonio and check it out.
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