Light show

We have spent more time in downtown San Antonio the last week than in the whole last year! That's one of the many great things about having holiday guests.

First of all, we went to a pre-Christmas party at San Fernando Cathedral. When I told you about this excursion, I mentioned a plan to return for more spectacular entertainment, and there was a teaser for this amazing show in my Christmas greeting post. Now I can tell you more about it, and show you some of the shots I took there, during two separate visits.

A few years ago we visited the Rice campus for the celebration of its centennial and were treated to an amazing multi-media show played across all the buildings on three sides of its central quad. We were pretty blown away by this feat of techno-artistry.

Then, last year, a similar show was set up locally, and we've been meaning to get downtown to see if for almost a year and half. Finally, with the impetus of those out of town visitors, we made time to see it. And not once but twice!

The show is entitled "San Antonio: the Saga," and you can see more photos, as well as a video of the full 24-minute show, here. Although nothing quite matches getting to see it in person. Although it's not as big as Rice's show, it's every bit as impressive.

The photo at the top of the post was taken on our second visit, when I didn't think I needed to take any more pictures to supplement those taken on our first. So I didn't have my camera, but of course I had my phone. And I decided that I wanted a shot or two from further back, showing the whole Cathedral facade. You can see more photos from this vantage point by following the official Saga link. But here are some more close-ups, highlighting just some of the fabulous images that make up the show:

one of my favorites

and here's a closer-up shot to show how the projection highlights the architecture

cool Día de los Muertos visual

another projection that really highlights the Cathedral's lovely facade

some of the projections were really psychedelic!

Finally, if you didn't notice it on first read, take a look back up towards the top of the post. On the right is the picture I took of the Aztec Theatre's neon sign from the street...then on the left is a shot of the sign in the Saga lightshow. Pretty neat, eh?

The best thing about this show is that it's still running. Tuesdays and Fridays through Sundays, I suppose, indefinitely. But don't put off seeing it like we did; it's worth more than one visit!

Greetings [of your choice]

However and wherever you choose to celebrate the solstice, I hope you are having a wonderful day and season!

An old church and a new bridge, among other things

A few nights ago we leveraged a party downtown into a mini-tour of the area, which we don't see often enough. The party was at Poblano's, which happens to be right next door to the handsome structure you see above, our wonderful San Fernando Cathedral. (I've blogged about it before, just not recently.)

You can't walk anywhere near this impressive building without taking lots of pictures, even if the light is low...

The nice new plaza that gives the Cathedral a great spatial context invites strolling (and even more exciting entertainment; I hope to tell you about that sometime soon!) so we decided to walk off our Poblano's dinner along the Riverwalk.

Which you can do directly from Main Plaza and the Cathedral thanks to some relatively recent improvements. You can read about the Riverwalk's entire history here, but we learned the details of the work in this area from the helpful sign on the right.

The bridge it refers to is the lovely structure you can see in the photos below. We've never seen it at night, and possible hadn't seen it at all, so it was quite a treat to discover how easy it is to get to the other side of the River now, and in such style.

The main reason this bridge is so handy is that it's the other side of the River that leads to its famous bend, where most of the restaurants and other entertainment establishments are located. We didn't need to eat any more, but the walk certainly provided a feast for the eyes. From the River's Christmas finery...

...to Jazz Age buildings lit up for the season (the Tower-Life, built in 1927 and one of our most picturesque skyscrapers) and in its normal neon glory (the Aztec theatre, built in 1926) ...

 

And then, there's a moveable feast as well. Here's one of the festive carriages that offer rides around the tourist attractions. 

I hope you all are enjoying the holidays!

A River Walk, revisited

Some of my long-time readers might remember a tour of the newest section of San Antonio's River Walk from last summer. I hadn't been back to the area since, but when Hal and Carey were in town for a few days last week, I thought it was time for a re-visit.

This time, we walked both ways, starting out with a nice lunch at a new restaurant, walking the mile from the Pearl Brewery to downtown and then turning around and coming back. The picture at the top of the post is of the ever-growing Brewery complex, featuring a new parking garage as well as various new businesses. And they're not done, as you can tell by the construction machinery much in evidence.

The new eatery we sampled is La Gloria, and you can see our tasty queso molcajete appetizer at the right. The menu here features interior Mexico street food, which is why H&C, real street-food aficianados, wanted to try it out. We thought the food was good, and the atmosphere was very nice, with the patio right on the river at the upstream end of the River Walk's Museum Reach.

thanks to our friendly waitress for taking this family picture

After we ate, Henry headed back to the
salt minesoffice and the kids and I headed downstream toward downtown.

I didn't take many pictures of the Walk's public art pieces; you can see some of these in last year's post. But I did snap some miscellaneous scenes that caught my eye, like these two:

bridge with tile inlays and a late-blooming crape myrtle


sun reflections from the water compete with public art under a bridge

The midpoint of our walk was Main Plaza, a newly refurbished urban space that—used to be, should be, and perhaps will be again—the heart of the city. And its jewel is San Fernando Cathedral (which you can read more about here). Here's the view of the Cathedral and the Plaza as you come up from the River Walk. We used the new, and very logical, connecting walkway between these two spaces that we're so lucky to have:

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Those who might be wondering if I've gotten my new camera yet, will want to know that these photos were taken with my trusty—though half-dead—old camera. However, my new, waterproof machine has been ordered! Can't wait to get it and try it out! I'll post a picture of it as soon as it arrives.

Red October

Last Thursday my choir buddies and I participated in a medieval ritual. We have the opportunity to do this because of the fact that our Catholic university is burdened blessed with a law school on campus.

I'm talking about Red Mass, which is celebrated in Catholic churches all over the world around this time of year, but which I'd never heard of until I joined the St. Mary's choir. It's attended by all kinds of local bigwigs—judges, lawyers, councilmen, university administrators, etc. Our young mayor (I know he looks like he's about 12, but he's smart and charismatic and has been doing a good job in office so far) was even there.

So it's a nice gig, choir-publicity-wise. But what makes it really special for me is the chance to sing in such an acoustically fabulous place—San Fernando Cathedral. I told you something about this wonderful structure last summer when Joan and I paid a short visit. I thought I'd give you a few more glimpses of it here. Unfortunately I don't have audio for you of the music we performed, but I think we sounded pretty good!

On the right above is a look at one of the side aisles before folks started arriving for the mass. It ended up being almost a full house. On the left is another look out that doorway at the end of the side aisle. It looks out onto our new plaza (where there used to be a street). This is a great improvement to the area between the cathedral and the river. Here's a look through some of the decorative banners on the plaza at the cathedral itself. Pretty impressive, no?
Here's one more shot of the interior, on the right, showing the quite lovely baptismal font at the back of the church.

It's pretty cool to have such a historic structure still in the middle of things downtown. It's just across the street from the courthouse and a block away from city hall. The Alamo might be more famous, but for acoustics, you can't beat San Fernando!

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Thursday this week I'm off on a short road trip that will hopefully generate lots of photos and stories. So after a Wordless Wednesday post in a couple of days, don't look for too much blogging from me for a while. Hopefully what I can come up with after the trip will make it worth the wait!