Texas Capitol & Downtown Walking Tour

Highlights

• Inside the Capitol rotunda and the grounds
• Congress Avenue's surviving nineteenth-century blocks
• The 1886 Driskill and the Paramount
• The 1928 plan and what it did to East Austin — told straight

About this experience

The Texas Capitol is taller than the one in Washington by about fourteen feet, and everyone in the building will make sure you know it. We start under the rotunda, walk the grounds, then come down Congress Avenue through the parts of downtown that are still nineteenth century.

Stops include the Driskill — cattle money, marble and a very good bar — the Paramount, and the corner where the city's Black business district stood before the 1928 plan moved it east. Two hours, mostly shade, no shouting into a microphone.

What's included

Meeting point

Texas State Capitol — south steps
1100 Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701

Know before you go

• Security screening at the Capitol — no large bags
• About 2.5 km, mostly flat
• The Capitol closes to visitors on some legislative days

Reviews

About the operator

Food walks led by people who know which pit is worth the queue and which is not.