Pre-cruise Site Seeing Tour of the City of Galveston Texas

Greetings Fellow Steemians:

My wife and i just recently went on a Carnival cruise out of Galveston Texas. The first cruise that we went on was 4 years ago for my dad's 75th birthday. After that cruise we said to ourselves that we couldn't believe that we hadn't done this before and have since that time tried to go on a cruise every year. The beauty of cruising is that you get a week away from the normal daily grind of life and work and can do as much or as little as you like. In the past we've always gotten up and on the road by 4 or 5 am in order to leave the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex and arrive in Galveston Texas in time to board the cruise ship. This time we decided to leave a day early in order to have a more relaxing drive and to see what the city of Galveston Texas unique.

A search of Yelp and Trip Advisor brought up multiple things to do, not all of which we got too, but here are some of the interesting things that we did (one piece of advise, check the weather forecast before you plan something like this as we did not realize until too late that it would be raining the entire time the day before the cruise). We still had a good time in spite of the adverse weather conditions.

The first place that we went to was the Galveston Seawall which was built after the Galveston hurricane of 1900. The seawall is ~ 10 miles long and the sidewalk on top of the seawall is claimed to be one of the longest continuous sidewalks in the world. I can't say that it was spectacular in it's beauty and the weather was gloomy but that is the Galveston Texas coastline for you. People did seem to be enjoying themselves though and there were even some surfers and folks fishing in spite of the inclement weather.

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Some of the colorful benches on the walk.

A lone surfer.

A lone fisherman...well sort of.

We then went tree sculpture hunting. Evidently in 1900 a storm killed most of the oak trees on the island. These trees were subsequently replanted. Then again in 2008 the wind, waves, tidal surge, and sea water from hurricane Ike proceeded to once again kill most of the great oak trees on the island. In order to preserve the memory of these 100 year old trees, mostly located in the east end historic district of Galveston, many of the residents had what was left of the trees carved into sculptures. We had no idea these existed and were amazed by the beauty and skill required to make these tree carvings.

They were also celebrating Mardi Gras with many of the houses decorated to reflect this event.

We then checked into the Tremont House whose history dates back to 1839 and is considered one of Galveston's most fashionable locations having been host to multiple US Presidents, Sioux chiefs, foreign dignitaries, civil war soldiers, cotton merchants, and Victorians.

What we didn't realize is that if you use their valet parking for the night at 18 dollars you can leave your vehicle there for the entire week of the cruise at no additional charge.

After checking in to the hotel we walked around the corner to Strand Historic District with our first stop being LaKing's Confectionary with is a must visit for their salt water taffy, multiple candies/chocolates, and their old time ice cream bar.

Subsequent stops included sampling some local brews...

Finding Zoltar...

Seafood dinner on Pier 21....

And a romantic walk along the ship channel...

I hope that you enjoyed this as much as we did as we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Galveston Texas better.