August 2026 · Seeing Austin

A walk through old downtown Austin

Park at the Capitol, then walk south down Congress Avenue to Fifth Street. That is eleven blocks, roughly three quarters of a mile, and it is downhill the entire way. Two hours covers everything, and every stop but one is free.

Where to leave the car

The Capitol Visitor Parking Garage at 1201 San Jacinto, two blocks east of the building. The first two hours are free, once per vehicle per day, then a dollar per half hour.

That is the cheapest parking downtown by a wide margin, and it sits at the top of the route. Walk down, then ride back up.

Why start at the Visitors Center?

Because the building itself is the exhibit. The Texas Capitol Visitors Center at 112 E 11th occupies the General Land Office building of 1856, the oldest surviving state office building in Texas.

A clerk named William Sydney Porter worked here as a draftsman before he started writing as O. Henry, and he later set a story inside it. You finish this walk at his house, which makes tidy bookends.

Free, open Monday to Friday 9 to 5 and weekends noon to 5.

What to see inside the Capitol

Take the free guided tour, then go find the basement. Tours leave the South Foyer every 15 to 30 minutes, Monday through Saturday from 9am with the last at 4:15, Sundays from noon. They run about forty minutes and need no reservation.

The building is open Monday to Friday 7am to 8pm and weekends from 9. You pass through a metal detector at the door.

Here is the part most visitors miss. Below the south lawn is the Capitol Extension, a four-level underground annex finished in 1993, and at its heart is a skylit open-air rotunda sixty feet across. Its floor mirrors the design of the ceiling above you in the main building. It is free, quiet, air-conditioned, and almost empty at 2pm in August.

The fact everybody wants: the Texas Capitol stands 302.64 feet to the star in the Goddess of Liberty's hand, against 288 feet for the US Capitol. Not "about fourteen feet." Fourteen and a half, and Texans have counted.

What is the Old Bakery?

A working bakery built in 1876 by Swedish immigrant Charles Lundberg, one block south of the Capitol at 1006 Congress. The city runs it now as a free gallery and consignment shop for artists over fifty.

A five-minute stop, and an odd one — a nineteenth-century storefront wedged into the government district. Open Wednesday to Friday 10 to 6 and Saturday noon to 5.

Is the Paramount Theatre open?

No, and this is the correction most guides have not made yet. The Paramount at 713 Congress closed in June 2026 for its first full restoration in nearly fifty years, part of a project running past $55 million, with reopening reported for around April 2027.

So look at the facade and keep walking. It opened in 1915 as the Majestic and took the Paramount name in 1930, which makes the marquee worth thirty seconds even dark.

Next door at 719 Congress, the Stateside is open and carrying the 52nd Summer Classic Film Series through the end of August. Single tickets run $15. If you want to sit inside an old Congress Avenue theater this year, that is the one.

Can you walk into the Driskill?

Yes. Push through the doors at 604 Brazos and stand in the lobby, because it is the most impressive interior on this route and it costs nothing.

Cattleman Jesse Driskill opened it in 1886 for around $400,000 and died four years later. The hotel bought the life-size portrait of him that still hangs in the lobby about four months after his death.

Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird had their first date over breakfast here in 1934, and he sat out his 1948 and 1964 election nights in an upstairs suite. The Driskill Bar off the lobby opens at 4:30 most weekdays and 11:30 Thursday through Sunday.

On the ghost stories: the well-worn one about the fifth-floor painting being a portrait of a girl who died on the stairs in 1887 is not true. The painting is a modern recreation of an English artist's work. The staircase story is real; the connection is invented.

Is Sixth Street worth the walk?

Not right now, and you should hear that before you go. The Sixth Street Historic District has been on the National Register since December 1975, and its Victorian masonry storefronts genuinely are the best surviving nineteenth-century commercial block in the city.

The problem is what is happening to them. One developer has bought roughly forty properties east of Brazos and currently has seventeen sites under construction at once. Windows are papered over, scaffolding covers whole blocks, and as of this year not a single restaurant tenant had been announced for the empty buildings.

The first signed lease is not expected to open until 2027, and the developer itself described the street's recent condition as a death spiral. Walk the one block from Congress to the Driskill, look up at the rooflines, and leave it there.

Which stops are not worth planning around?

The Governor's Mansion at 1010 Colorado, built in 1856, closes for maintenance every July, August and September. Even in season, tours run three afternoons a week and need a reservation a week ahead. In summer it is a photograph through a fence.

The Littlefield and Scarbrough Buildings at Sixth and Congress are worth tilting your head back at, but both are private offices with nothing to go inside for.

Finish instead at the O. Henry Museum, 409 E 5th, three blocks southeast of the Driskill. It is the cottage the writer actually rented, it is free, and it opens Wednesday to Sunday from noon to 5.

One note on the hill

Congress Avenue drops steadily from the Capitol to the river, which is lovely going south and less lovely at 4pm in August going north. Plan the return leg before you start, not after.

See how we run the downtown loop →