Austin is the main city of Texas with a population of one million people and the second largest state capital in the country. It houses the state's main university, the political, technological and musical heart of the state. Here they like to call the city "the world capital of live music" and stick on the bumpers stickers with the slogan "keep Austin strange." Finally, there are so many high-tech companies working here that the city is sometimes called "Silicon Hills."
How to get to Austin
International Airport Austin-Bergstrom is 10 km south-west of the city center and receives flights from most major carriers on 50 direct routes. Also, you can get to the city by train "Amtrak" on the branch "Texas Eagle" of Chicago - San Antonio. Buses many companies go to the city of San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and Mexico.
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Entertainment, excursions and attractions Austin
Austin is very big. In order to somehow navigate in interesting places in the city, it is absolutely necessary to understand in advance which area is heading. First of all, you can start from the university part of the city, where tourists will have enough entertainment for the whole day.
University of Texas and "drag" occupy a whole separate area, and it is not surprising: the university is in the top five of the largest campus in the country. A large section of Gudalupe Street goes along the western border of the campus and is called among the local "drag". There are many excellent places for shopping and gastronomic adventures.
And on the campus are enough places for an adventure of a different kind . It Blanton Art Museum with a large permanent collection of European art, with masterpieces by Rubens level, as well as exhibitions of American and Latin American authors . This is the Harry Ransome Center, which has a collection of restored cultural artifacts, including rare editions, manuscripts, photos, films and art objects . This is the House of Nile Cochran, . in 1855 in the Greek Revival style - one of the most important architectural sights . This Presidential Library and Museum, LBJ and the Texas Memorial Museum in the exhibition hall of the Texas Natural History Center, where there is, among other things paleontological laboratory . Finally, this is a University tower more than 90 m tall, built in 1937 . and became one of the city symbols .
The downtown also lacks attractions. First of all, this is the Austin Art Museum, where you can get acquainted with the art of the 20th century and even more modern. History lovers can be liked by the Texas State Museum, Bob Bullock, very cute and with terrifyingly saturated expositions. In the gallery "Women and Work" for more than 30 years open all new exhibitions of contemporary artists, women who live and work in Texas and beyond
But the most unconventional museum of the city -. HOPE is an open gallery on the corner of streets and Baylor The 11th. Actually, the gallery is just a concrete wall without a ceiling, remaining from the attempt to build a condominium here. The walls are painted graffiti along and across, and there is always something new.
In Austin-East is the Museum of French rule. The building was built in 1841, after the French King Louis Philippe officially recognized the Republic of Texas as independent and ordered the creation of an authority here. The historic building with a kitchen and garage for crews is open for visits, and group excursions are organized (scheduled). And in the beautiful garden area around the building, the Austin French alliance organizes seasonal Sunday petanque competitions.
Another particular East-Austin attraction is the Moonlight towers. These five steel 50-meter towers were built in 1894, according to legend, in order to illuminate in the dark time the area that the serial killer was terrorizing.
Austin-South is basically everything that lies south of Lake Bird. The main street here is Riverside, which runs parallel to the Colorado River. Moving along it to the east at the end of the day, you will see the Austin version of the Mexican night life: East Riverside is the main competitor of the famous Tusovaya Sixth Street in downtown. And during the daytime there are many Mexican and Chinese food shops here with inexpensive and delicious food. One block north of Riverside is the Mexican flea market (open on weekends)
- Go up to the University Tower observation platform and then go to the Cactus Cafe on campus. The cafe is famous for live music, and indeed very famous.
- See "The Garbage Cathedral" in Austin-South, an art installation in the backyard of a certain Vince Hannemann, which was created for more than 20 years from scraps of metal and other junk. Today the cathedral has grown to three floors.
- Observe the world's largest urban colony of bats. More than 1.5 million mice live under the Ann Richards Bridge (Congress Avenue), but they can only be seen in the summer: in winter they migrate to Mexico.
The famous writer O. Henry lived in Austin for less than two years, from 1893 to 1895 . Anyway, in a nice cottage built in 1886, which the future writer was shooting with his wife and daughter, in 1934 a museum was opened. It stores a lot of historical items, some furniture of the Porter family and personal belongings. Annually in the house museum there is a city competition of masters of the pun.
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Events of Austin
The largest music festival "Austin City Limits" takes place annually in the park of Zilker and consists of two three-day weekends. For the first time the festival was held in 2002, and today groups of different genres gather together on eight stages, including rock, country, folk, electronics and hip-hop, and the number of festival guests reaches about 75 thousand people every day.
Boat race on Lake Lady Bird passes in April 1999. The race is accompanied by many cultural events. Another downtown event is the street festival at Old Pekan Street, which takes place in May and September on a street formerly bearing the name (now Eastern Sixth Street). About 250 outlets open here, and live music plays on several stages.
In the North-Central area in January-February there is a theater festival "Frontera". Around the same time in Chinatown of this region celebrate the Chinese New Year with a Texas scale. This is a two-day festival with free entry, dragons and dances, martial arts performances and so on. And the chocolate festival is held in the district in March, and not only chocolate, but also bakery, confectionery, hotels and all kinds of other institutions that offer samples of their art to the guests are participating in it.