Frommer's Review
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, one of the largest in the world in the 1880s and 1890s. (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 lime kilns 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; opens 9:30am daily, weather permitting, closes generally when zoo gate closes).
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
