Historical Austin

This post is kind of the hodgepodge of the Capitol/downtown experience. The Capitol of Texas is an incredibly beautiful building and I loved the tour! After the tour of the inside, we took a walking history tour of downtown Austin. I love the shot above, of the walkway up to the Capitol building!

Below is a picture of the top of the Capitol building, where you can see the goddess at the top and also the seals of the "Six Flags" that have flown over Texas (Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, the Confederacy and finally the United States).

It was a very interesting story of how the Capitol building was built, but it's too long to put on here. But basically, Texas sold some land in the panhandle in order to pay for the building to be built - and the materials (I believe red granite) were basically given to them because nobody wanted that at the time!

We happened to be there on the anniversary of the Alamo, so they had people in costumes at the Alamo memorial on the front lawn of the Capitol, reading every single name of the people who died that day. They even rang a bell in between each one. It was very neat to watch.

This is a little bit further down the path - a memorial to Confederate dead.

This historical district was amazing - so much history here!!

And of course, who could forget famous Sixth Street! We went out and walked around on Sixth Street the night before, but after 2 piles of vomit and tons of Mardi Gras madness, I was kind of DONE with it.

On the tour, they took us through part of this hotel - the Driskill Hotel. It has a lot of history attached to it and it was absolutely magnificent inside.

As you can see, the lobby is incredibly fancy.......

It's like something out of a movie!

Ummmm.....I would like to see the inside of this suite!!

This room has a lot of history attached to it - Lyndon B. Johnson had his first date with his wife, Lady Bird Johnson in this room!

It was a great tour and a fantastic quick trip to Austin - loved it!