Winery on the Gruene...and lunch!

 

Winery on the Gruene…and lunch!

One day, we took a bit of a drive north and east of San Antonio to a small historic town of Gruene (pronounced “green”).  German farmers arrived here in the mid-1840’s.  They originally reached the established town of New Braunfels, but land was scarce, so they moved down the river a bit and settled in Gruene.  The town prospered until about 1920, when the development stopped and Gruene started a downward slide.  This continued until the mid-1970’s, when the estate was sold, and new purchasers arrived.  New businesses were established and Gruene was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

We started our visit with a stop at the winery in town, Winery on the Gruene.  They had both dry and sweet wines, so it seems just about anything for everyone’s taste!  We did pick up a bottle of their Chardonnay to enjoy later on our patio by the campsite!

The historic part of town can easily be identified by looking up and finding the old water tower in town!  The full name of the historic district seems to be “Gruene Historic District at the Water Tower”, so clearly the water tower is an important feature.  We walked by the water tower on our way to…

… the Gristmill River Restaurant and Bar, where we had a substantial lunch (peppered filet for me!)!  The décor and surroundings were quite rustic, as you can see in the above photo, and the Guadalupe River was next to it.  I did snap a photo of it after lunch as we drove out of town!

Enjoy!!

Mission Conception

The last mission that we visited on this trip was Mission Conception.  At 250 years old, the church at Mission Conception is one of the country’s oldest original stone churches.  However, much of the Mission today is not standing, so our visit encompassed visiting what we could of what is at least partially standing.  Also, there is one more Mission on the San Antonio Mission Trail, The Alamo.  However, due to the CoVid-19 scare, we did not get to visit that mission on this trip.  I’m glad we got to see what we did, and now, let’s take a look at Mission Conception.

The first thing we noticed on the Mission grounds was technically not truly a part of the Mission.  It was The Quarry, and was the source of the stone for building Mission Conception, as well as Mission San Jose, the previous Mission we saw.  Workers used pick axes to cut lines in the limestone rocks, and bars and wedges to pry up the rocks from the ground.  Stone masters then shaped and finished the stone.  Although the quarry is much, much smaller than quarries we tend to see today, remember this was a quarry from 250 years ago, with all stone removed manually.

The grounds of Mission Conception are primarily in ruins, with a few exceptions.  Along the side of the church, there is an outside corridor (above image).  The corridor runs alongside the rooms of the Convento at Mission Conception – among those are the kitchen (outside ruins), refectory and library, where an example of the art that can be found inside the buildings (image below).  The art is a blend of Christian, Spanish and Native art elements. This art work was restored in 1988.

Here’s a nice view of the front of the church.  Unfortunately, we could not get inside the church, as they are in the middle of renovating it.  These outside walls used to be covered in colorful frescos, but we couldn’t see any evidence of those today.  

As we walked back to the exit, we noticed some other buildings not noted on any maps of the Mission.  I also took an image looking through the doorway of a ruin that spoke to the resiliency of nature, as there is greenery growing where there once was a building.

Enjoy!!

Historic Savannah

We spent a couple of days in Savannah, Georgia, and on one of those days, we took a tour of historic Savannah, via the hop-on hop-off bus there.  It gave us a chance to see this lovely city, full of parks and history.

Our first stop was the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.  It was formed in the late 18^th century when French immigrants from France and Haiti seeking refuge landed in Savannah.  It started as a church, and became a cathedral in 1850.  It’s so beautiful, it’s hard to believe that it was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1898.  It was rebuilt about 2 years later, in 1900.  However, I think much of its beauty today can be attributed to the restoration efforts that happened in 2000.

Flannery O’Connor was an author of short stories.  I’ve heard her style referred to as “Southern Gothic”.  I particularly enjoy a quote of hers when referring to her writing style  - “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it’s going to be called realistic.”  I was very appreciative of her writing, and how different it was from anything I’d read up to that point.   She won the O. Henry award for best short story of the year three different times.  She referred to this house as the “house I was raised in”.  They did offer tours of this house – unfortunately, not while we were there (darn!).  Flannery O’Connor lived a short life, dying at age 39 in 1964, from lupus.  

One of the things I enjoyed most about Savannah was the number of parks sprinkled throughout the city there were.  I believe that I heard there are about 21 or 22 parks currently.  There were 2 more originally – however, one is now under a road and the other part of the bridge (see below) along the river, so they cannot be reclaimed by the City.  It kept the city of Savannah from feeling too overwhelmingly like a city, and reminded me of the neighborhood in Chicago where I spent my very young childhood years – a block from a huge city park, and about ½ block from a large boulevard that seemed more like a park than a median of a city street.  I noticed that one of the Savannah parks contained a cemetery of military soldiers.

When we got off the hop on, hop off bus and walked to the riverfront to stop at one of the many restaurants and pubs to grab lunch, we walked past this very cool mural painted on a cement wall.  It reflected the sentiments of some of the somewhat religious groups back during Prohibition in the US, from 1920 until 1933.  I found it particularly amusing, as, like I said, we were walking down the street towards the area where liquor was flowing freely!

The area along the riverfront was full of lovely picturesque shops, restaurants and pubs that kept the historic look and feel of the buildings there.  This was one of my favorite!

And, finally, this is the bridge I referred to above.  It will take you from Georgia to South Carolina.  One interesting tidbit about Georgia and South Carolina.  Although Georgia is known as “The Peach State”, South Carolina actually grows more peaches each year!  I didn’t read this anywhere – the tour guide on the hop on, hop off bus said it……so it must be true! 

Enjoy!