With its rustic stone bridges and winding walkways, the city's main park has a charming, old-fashioned feel and serves as a popular center for such recreational activities as golf, polo, biking, and picnicking. I especially like the Japanese Tea Garden (also known as the Japanese Sunken Garden), created in 1917 by prison labor to beautify an abandoned cement quarry. (The same quarry furnished cement rock for the state capitol in Austin.) You can still see a brick smokestack and a number of the old limekilns among the beautiful flower arrangements -- lusher than those in most Japanese gardens. After Pearl Harbor, the site was officially renamed the Chinese Sunken Garden, and a Chinese-style entryway was added on. Not until 1983 was the original name restored. Just to the southwest, a bowl of limestone cliffs found to have natural acoustic properties was turned into the Sunken Garden Theater. A 60-foot-high waterfall and water lily-laced ponds are among its lures. Across from the entrance to the San Antonio Zoological Gardens , you can buy tickets for the Brackenridge Eagle (tel. 210/734-7183), a miniature train that replicates an 1863 model. The pleasant 2-mile ride through the park takes about 20 minutes (tickets $2.50 for adults, $2 for children 3-11; daily 9:30am, weather permitting, to when zoo gate closes).
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