road trip: experience in the far southwest: austin, part 1

to get an idea of the map of texas, i give you a quote from a pretty good flick, "bernie": 

three hours and one minute later, and we were in the people's republic of austin, the capital of texas and seat of hipsterville travis county. the reason why our time in dallas was so short was because chris suggested that we spend more time in here. i'm sort of glad we did, as i was particularly enamoured with our hotel, hotel san jose, which used to be a motor lodge, but has transformed into a charming, quirky bungalow-style hotel.

at the time i booked the hotel, you couldn't even make a reservation on the internet, but had to call in. i imagined that they had a white board with a drawn calendar on it, and that's how they figured if there was any room available. (i don't think i'm actually wrong about that, but you can now make a reservation on the website)

 

our room was on the second floor of a building in the back of the courtyard/pool area, secluded and shady, with a communal table on the landing. the hotel offers bike and typewriter rentals (!) and has an extensive music and video lending library.

 

 

none of the rooms seem to be the same; i would have loved to have had this room with a small outdoor sleeping alcove, but was very charmed with what i got.

 

 

from the website it looks like they've got a limited room service menu, but last summer there wasn't anything like it. luckily there is a lovely coffee and sandwich shop, jo's coffee, adjacent to the parking lot. we picked up some ice coffees and breakfast tacos and basically spent the first day lounging by the pool. 

wouldn't you?

after a long nap and a casual late night stroll along south congress, dinner was a couple slices of some very good pizza outside the takeaway window of homeslice pizza. i know there are photos of the tasty eggplant pie (like eggplant parmesan pizza!) i had somewhere, but they seem to be lost in the ether. still, homeslice was very good, and very worth mentioning.


hotel san jose
1316 south congress avenue
austin tx 78704
512.444.7322.

jo's coffee
1300 south congress avenue
austin tx 78704
512.444.3800.

home slice pizza
1415 south congress avenue
austin tx 78704
512.444-7437.