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Texas History Tour - Spanish influence - Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña

Monday morning, we took a quick trip to visit the last and closest mission before leaving San Antonio: Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña

This was the only mission we visited during the week, so it's the only one we were able to enter the church building on.  Very interesting!  The kids had lots of questions.  

Now that it's been pointed out, I see it in all our pictures - references to one of our favorite sci-fi tv shows.  Anyone else see it?












Apparently the friars that lived here were short too!  Z had to keep bending over and A fit perfectly!




The inscriptions on either side of the doors are in Latin - very cool thing to find for students of Latin



Have you figured it out yet?  



There was a little garden and reflection area out front of the church


This is out back of the church and looking up the steps to the church offices.





We recently watched videos on a working castle in France where they were resorting using techniques that would have been used when it was built.  One of the fascinating things was all the colors they used in decorating.  It was very cool to see all the colors using in the preservation of these Spanish missions, particularly in the church here at Mission Concepcion.  It gives a new perspective on history and color.

Did you figure out the sci-fi reference?  The windows on the front of the church building look very similar to the symbol of earth in StarGate SG1.


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