San Antonio Meeting Planner 2007 - (Page 10) San Antonio’s worldfamous River Walk winds through downtown creating an entirely new way to see the city. Hyatt Regency Hotel, however, was built from the ground up and it is here that the second River Walk extension, the Paseo del Alamo, is found. Enter the hotel’s soaring atrium next to the legendary Landing Jazz Club and continue up a landscaped water course to street level and, you guessed it, to the Alamo. There’s no escaping it. Many visitors to the River Walk – and there are over three million of them a year – are content to stay right here in the bustling downtown core – either exploring on foot or relaxing on a river cruiser. One good place to buy cruiser tickets is across from the Hilton, and as we are going to suggest venturing farther upstream, now would be a good time to anticipate cruising back down by buying your passage; the cruisers go as far as the River Walk now does, but will soon use locks to offer river transit as far as the Pearl Brewery development. Today we’re on foot, sharing the river with flocks of ducks and the less-crowded walkway with lunchtime joggers. This is a contemplative stretch of the river, shaded in spots by stately cypresses, but there are vistas to be savored around each bend in the winding waterway – including one that offers tantalizing glimpses of the “enchilada red” main library. There are public art projects such as tile-mosaic murals and faux-bois benches. And there is a special destination in the form of the Southwest School of Art and Craft, housed in the buildings that once harbored the Ursuline Academy of French nuns, founded in 1851. (Many of the school’s best exhibits are presented in the new annex across Augusta Street in a space that was once a Sears tire shop.) Near the end of your journey, the Mediterraneanstyle Municipal Auditorium looms over the River Walk and another tower – this one the spire of the red-brick First Baptist Church-plays counterpoint to its White Wings southern cousin as it marks the northern terminus of the walkway. Relax and wait for the barge – every 20 minutes they say. But we know you’re not now in a hurry. thanks to the construction of a final pedestrian link courtesy of the developers of the Drury Plaza Hotel, itself nearing completion in the old Alamo National Bank Building. Restorations, adaptations and clever conversions have helped reinvigorate many of the historic buildings lining the fabled walkway. The Omni La Mansión del Rio Hotel, for example, was once the home of St. Mary’s College and School of Law. The newly minted Watermark Hotel and Spa was previously a furniture store, and farther upstream another former bank and office building has become the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The North St. Mary Street at West Crockett Street. Public art projects such as faux-bois benches line the River Walk. 10 http://visitsanantonio.com
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