RHH's photos with the keyword: mission espada

We will be leaving in less than a month for our annual hiking and backpacking vacation with our oldest daughter. Last year we went to Big Bend National Park and San Antonio, Texas. This year we are going to Utah, to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. When in San Antonio we rented bikes and did the ten-mile Mission Trail, a paved trail along the San Antonio River that begins at the Alamo and visits five old Spanish missions along the river. This was the last of them, Mission San Francisco de la Espada.

This was our last view of Mission Espada from some of the ruined outbuildings. Espada was the fifth and last of the old Spanish Missions along the San Antonio River in San Antonio, Texas we visited while biking the Mission Trail.

This is a front view of the church at Mission Espada with its bells. Mission Espada is one of the five old Spanish missions along the mission trail in San Antonio, Texas.

Mission Espada was the last of the old Spanish missions we visited along the Mission Trail when we were in San Antonio, Texas. The missions, founded in the early eighteenth century, are along a ten-mile stretch of the San Antonio River, this the farthest out. We biked the trail which leads from downtown San Antonio to Mission Espada, eating our lunch along the way and enjoying a beautiful spring day.

These are grounds, once within walls, of Mission Espada in San Antonio, Texas. The church, visible on the right, is still standing and still in use, and the convent has been converted into a visitors' center, but the rest of the buildings and walls are ruined and much of the stone taken away for other purposes.

These are some of the ruined outbuildings and walls of Mission Espada in San Antonio, Texas. The church is still standing and still in use but the rest of the mission is largely in ruins.

This is Mission Espada, the most distant from downtown San Antonio, Texas. It is one of five old Spanish missions along a ten-mile stretch of the San Antonio River.