My work travels took me through San Antonio. With a number of UNESCO Missions surrounding the city, I made it a “mission” to get out and explore one of San Antonio’s historic missions. Today’s visit was to Mission Concepción, which represented one of the better maintained missions in the San Antonio area. The whole experience was pretty easy to approach, making for an interesting day.

---

This post is one chapter on a work trip from Canada to San Antonio, Texas, United States of America. This trip was enhanced through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status, and Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. For parts of the trip, please see this index.

If you enjoyed this post, please follow us here or on social media through Facebook, Twitter “X” or Instagram for more travel tips and hacks on how to “Upgrade Your Travels”.

---

---

San Antonio’s Missions: Discovering Mission Concepción

---

During my three day visit to San Antonio, after chatting with my fellow business travellers, I had received a recommendation to get out to visit the Missions surrounding San Antonio, Texas, United States of America.

San Antonio has five UNESCO rated Missions within it’s surrounding city limits. I ended up deciding do complete a self guided tour to Mission Concepción; the closest and oldest preserved church amongst the five different missions.

About the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park:

The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park is a National Historical Park and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site preserving four of the five Spanish frontier missions in San Antonio, Texas, US. These outposts were established by Catholic religious orders to spread Christianity among the local natives. These missions formed part of a colonization system that stretched across the Spanish Southwest in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

The fifth (and best known) mission in San Antonio, the Alamo, is not part of the Park. It is located upstream from Mission Concepción, in downtown San Antonio, and is owned by the State of Texas.

Visiting Mission Concepción:

While there were several day tours available for purchase through Viator, I didn’t actually get my act organized in time to take advantage of a group tour. As a reult, I ended up taking an Uber from my hotel at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter on the Riverwalk to the Mission Concepción. The fare was less than $11 USD, making it a pretty easy and convenient way to get to the closest Mission.

After arriving to Mission Concepción, I started to explore the grounds. I would end up discovering that, during my Sunday visit, the church ended up being closed for mass due to it being a full occupancy.

I ended up killing off this time by wandering through the outer grounds. Much like my visit to The Alamo, I was able to get through the site in a shorter time frame than I had originally envisioned. It took me around ninety minutes to see everything (including a church delay), but I probably could have squeezed it down to an hour if I was pressed for time.

Starting with the outer grounds, I ended up looking at some of the surrounding settlements that were left over from the Mission. Like the Alamo, almost all the outer walls of the mission that housed the area were completely demolished.

Some of the outer buildings had remnants of the interior painted walls that had been re-discovered through restoration.

Killing off the church delay, I eventually wound my way around to the front of the church. On my Sunday visit, the area was pretty quiet and absent of many tourists.

Eventually getting to the front of the church, I was pretty impressed with the structure. The structure was initially built in 1716, and was known to be among the best preserved missions out of the four others in San Antonio. The church presented architecture that was consistent of the Spanish period of 1735. It represents the oldest unrestored stone church in the United States in accordance with it’s UNESCO Heritage designation.

The Mission Concepción did not have a lot of historical markers or placards that explained the significance of it’s artifacts. I did manage to download the free US NPS National Park Services App, but I didn’t find it to be super useful. As a result, there may be some advantages to coming with a guide to pint out the various features and differences of each Mission or site.

Admission to the site and church was free of charge. Once the church service ended, I was able to get inside to take a look. The interior was quite traditional in type, with lightly restored walls overseeing the nave and the sanctuary.

I ended up heading back into town by Uber after visiting the Mission Concepción. The site had some interesting features.

My Thoughts on the Mission Concepción visit:

My spur of the moment trip to Mission Concepción was a great way to take in a few additional sights in San Antonio. While a visit was mostly self guided, I was able to appreciate a sunny morning away from most of the convention crowds.

The Mission Concepción is easily accessible by ride share, and I had no problems getting a ride there and back.

---

If you’ve visited the San Antonio Mission’s, which one happens to be your favorite ?

---