Unusual Things Around San Antonio Texas

An Overview of San Antonio

San Antonio is a prominent city in Texas best known for it’s pivotal histroy around the Alamo. The Alamo is one of the city’s five Spanish-colonial historical mission, integral for it’s last stand legend which helped develop the southern boundary of Texas and the United States at large. The rest of the city is also beautiful, with a famous riverwalk, a large urban spaces and several famous restaurants allowing for many unusual things around San Antonio.

Unusual Things Around San Antonio Texas

Bracken Cave Preserve Bat Colony

Bracken Cave is the summer home to one of the largest bat colonies in the world. The protected site has offered shelter for an estimated 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats which roost in the depths of the cavern between March and October. This makes the cave the largest known concentrated area for mammals on Earth. The cave is about a half-hour drive north from San Antonio and the bats can only be viewed with a guide by making an advanced booking.

Fort Sam Houston Quadrangle and Museum

This is a large, historical park which hosts a military museum with uniquely designed windows made in order to better withstand attacks from advancing weaponry. The fort grounds now also have a clock tower dedicated to war heroes, a small herd of protected deer and several peacocks wandering around. The Museum is near the heart of San Antonio.

World’s Largest Cowboy Boots

This is an odd-but-appropriate Texas roadside attraction. The World’s Largest Cowboy Boots are a sculpture which can be found in the northern part of San Antonio. The boots are part of a shopping area.

Fiesta Tower

Located within the second floor of the San Antonio Central Library, this is a 20-foot-tall pillar of curling glass, twisting orbs and bright art. The sculpture was made by internationally famed glass-artist Dale Chihuly.

Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Six Flags is a large amusement park corporation native to Texas, named for the six sovereign countries which had control over the Texas territory (Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederate States). The company has multiple acclaimed amuseument parks throughout the state, the US, Canada and Mexico, with the San Antonio branch being one of the most popular.

Natural Bridge Caverns

Home to large chambers with massive subterranean pillars, a impressive sinkhole and a 60-foot natural limestone slab bridge, the Natural Bridge Caverns are the largest known commercial caverns in Texas. Visitors must pay a fee to enter.

Natural Bridge Wildlife Range

Located fairly close to the Natural Bridge Caverns, this Wildlife Ranch serves as an exotic animal refuge as a Texas Land Heritage property. The 400 acre ranch allows visitors to drive through in cars viewing free-range animals such as zebras, giraffes, ostriches and many others.

San Antonio River Walk

The heart of San Antonio’s tourism and recreational life is the San Antonio River Walk, a canal-and-pedestrian street which winds below the automobile routes through the city. The River Walk offers boat rides, unique eateries and other interesting activates, following a 15-mile urban walk along the water and over bridges. This is widely considered to host the most iconic and unsual things around San Antonio.

Brackenridge Park

This is a large park area following a series of historic riverside attractions operating out of a long-abandoned limestone rock quarry. The park is home to trails, picnic areas, the San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden (the Sunken Gardens), unique pond features and old, park-incorperated ruins.

Witte Museum

The Witte Museum is a venue hosting long-term exhibits regarding Texas’ natural histroy, heritage and artworks. The museum has several large dinosaur skeleton displays, educational rooms, native fauna exhibits and a Science Treehouse for children outside.

Historic Market Square

The Historic Market Square of San Antonio is home to a traditional Mexican-plaza with numerous souvenir shops, regular businesses and specialty stores. The area is often visited during cultural events and “El Mercado” is often decorated with colorful hanging flags.

Lost Maples State Natural Area

Located roughly two hours driving outside of San Antonio, this is a large protected area full of hills and canyons on the upper Sabinal River. The destination is especially popular in the Autumn, when leaves changing color reflect off the waters of the natural area.

The Alamo

By far the most famous and most-visited feature of San Antonio, the world-renowned Spanish mission-turned-fortress compound was the site of a historic resistance effort where a small group of determined Texan independence fighters held off a far larger Mexican army. While the Mexican forces succeeded and nearly all of the Texan defenders were slain (including legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett), the battle became a pivotal symbol of their resistance during the Mexican-American War.

Hopscotch San Antonio

Hopscotch is a collaborative creative art space with interactive, walkthrough installations. Visitors pass through strangely lit corridors, trippy art interiors and optical illusion exhibitions. Visiting the gallery is one of the more unusual things around San Antonio.

La Villita Historic Village

Easily accessible from the San Antonio River Walk, this small enclave of art galleries and shops is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places due to its thriving art community and connection to San Antonio’s cultural past.

McNutt Sculpture Garden

This is a permanent outdoor exhibition attached to the Briscoe Museum. The sculpture garden, encased in a beautiful courtyard, is surrounded by dynamic bronze sculptures showing iconic figures who helped define history in the Western Frontier. Visitors can find Native Americans, European settlers and classic western animals such as horses, lizards and desert snakes.

Buckhorn Saloon and Museum

This Saloon is an Old West-themed gift shop which sells an array of Bowie knives, cowboy hats, desert boots and other odd souvenirs. The venue is also billed as a wildlife museum, with walls covered in mounted animal heads, a hall of taxidermy fakes, an actual 10,000 year-old prehistoric elk exhibit, numerous oddities and a couple of mythological creatures. Naturally, since this isn’t odd enough, the venue also serves drinks.

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site designed to preserve four of the five prominent Spanish frontier missions around San Antonio. The missions are aligned within a National Historic Park which can be visited by following a series of riverside trails.

Grotto on the River

“The Grotto” is an artificial cave found on the San Antonio River Walk designed by Carlos Cortés. The attraction is an odd walkthrough cavern with rough rock-faces added to the façade. The cave also has several small waterfalls, pools and stalactites.

Giant Stag Made of Junk

Officially titled as the “King of the Parc,” this metal creature was cobbled together from rusted fenders, engine parts, bicycle seats, typewriters and more. The stag stands at around 40-feet tall, stepping onto a small rise in a park on the West side of town.

Hot Wells of Bexar County

The Hot Wells of Bexar County now serve as a cultural historical park in San Antonio. The Hot Wells were once a sulfurous-water pool-and-baths enterprise. The venue has been operated and shut down several times, with the most famous version being a famous Victorian-styled structure which hosted numerous celebrities and dignitaries. The hotel-spa burned down, but the ruins remained, eventually converted into an outdoor park.

San Antonio Mud Festival

The San Antonio Mud Festival occurs each year in January, directly after New Year’s Day. The River Walk is drained so the underwater portions can be cleaned and thousands of galleons of water are dumped into a dirt field, starting an event known as the Michelob Ultra Riverwalk Mud Festival. The parade contains many events and other unusual things around San Antonio. The festival includes a Mud Parade, a mud-arts-and-crafts show and a large party where a Mud King and Queen are crowned.

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