San with a Plan: It’s as Fun a Time as Ever to visit San Antonio

San with a Plan: It’s as Fun a Time as Ever to visit San Antonio

The adjoining AC by Marriott and Element by Westin hotels, a block from the River Walk

A VIBRANT DESTINATION any time of the year, San Antonio is especially exciting in October, leading up to weekend-long Dia de Los Muertos celebrations all over town. A river parade and special events in the La Villita Historic Village are among the festivities Oct. 27-29. Walkability is key, as ever — and two new Marriott properties have just opened in the heart of the River Walk, ensuring an easy trip for all.


The adjoining hotels, AC by Marriott and Element by Westin, are located on Soledad at Commerce; each offers a tasty breakfast buffet, and there’s a rooftop bar with bites, brunch and unbeatable skyline views.

The River Walk itself offers plenty of tourist-trappy fun (especially for families), but hop over to Hemisfair for more park and garden spaces, plus trendy eats like Box St. All Day. Farther east, find a more sophisticated take on the city’s mariachi-and-margaritas vibe at still-new Carriqui, with South Texas-inspired fare.

People + Places

Alonso, inset, and her acrylic-on-canvas painting 'Birds'

BASED IN HOUSTON, Cuban-American painter Erika Alonso is a self-taught, self-described “painterly painter,” with a playful and very idiosyncratic take on abstract expressionism, mark making, and automatism, where the artist works quickly and intuitively, relying upon the subconscious to guide the artistic process. Her work can be found in numerous private collections across the United States and Europe, including that of beloved Houston collector and art fanatic Lester Marks. On Friday, Sept 8., from 7-9pm at Lanecia Rouse Tinsley Gallery, Alise Art Group's Art House presents Alonso’s solo exhibition Birds Are People Too (And Other Thoughts . . . ).

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Nik Parr and The Selfless Lovers

THE WORD “FUNK” has been around a long, long time. In the mid-1950s, New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer popularized the word as a musical term when he instructed musicians on recording dates to “play a little funkier.” In his book Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, historian Robert Farris Thompson goes back even further, and traces the origin of the word “funky” to the Ki-Kongo word lu-fuki, meaning “positive sweat,” an olfactory term used to praise an individual for the integrity of their art.

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