Omni Austin Hotel Downtown (Recently Renovated)

The Congress Avenue Bridge spans Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin and is home to the largest urban bat colony in North America. The colony is estimated at 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats. Each night from mid-March to November, the bats emerge from under the bridge at dusk to blanket the sky as they head out to forage for food. This event has become one of the most spectacular and unusual tourist attractions in Texas.

New mixed-use development including chic retail stores, coffee shops, restaurants, wine bars and living spaces in a vibrant urban setting.

Likely Texas' best known street, the seven block's of 6th Street between Congress and IH 35 are certainly Austin's entertainment center. With a little help from it's many like-minded sister streets, 6th Street is the heart of Austin's live entertainment scene and the capital of third coast music. Sixth Street (formerly known as Pecan Street) is lined with many historical houses and commercial buildings dating from the late 1800's and early 1900's. The storied old buildings now house numerous bars, a host of live entertainment venues, tattoo parlors, art galleries, casual cafes & upscale restaurants. Live music of every genre abounds. From jazz, blues, and country to rock, hip-hop, beat, progressive, metal, punk and derivations of these, there's something to whet everyone's musical pallete.

The Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail, formally the Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail, is the longest trail designed for non-motorized traffic maintained by the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department and watched after by a local non-profit named Town Lake Trail Foundation. It is 10.1 miles long and one of the oldest urban Texas hike and bike paths stretching the entire length of Lady Bird Lake itself. The trail is mostly flat, 97.5% has less than an 8% grade, and makes an easy loop along both shores of Lady Bird Lake being marked on one end by Tom Miller Dam and the other by Longhorn Dam. Barton Creek feeds into Lady Bird Lake from the south and a pedestrian bridge incorporated into the trail bridges Barton Creek. The Roberta Crenshaw Pedestrian Walkway bridges Lake Austin beneath MoPac Boulevard and provides the trail's westmost crossing of Lady Bird Lake.

For over 90 years, The Paramount Theatre has been home to vaudeville, silent movies and "talkies," music, dance, and Broadway shows. Through the years, a cast of superstars has graced its stage; from Houdini, the Marx Brothers, Helen Hayes, Orson Welles, Sarah Bernhardt, the Ziegfeld Follies, the Metropolitan Opera, Lillian Russell, John Philip Sousa, the Barrymores, Lillian Gish, and George M. Cohan to such modern-day favorites as Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Sarah Vaughan, Lyle Lovett, Gregory Hines, and Mandy Patinkin.

The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in downtown Austin, Texas, tells the “Story of Texas” with three floors of interactive exhibits, the special effects show, The Star of Destiny, in the Texas Spirit Theater, and Austin's only IMAX Theatre, featuring the signature large-format film, Texas: The Big Picture. A 35-foot-tall bronze Lone Star sculpture greets visitors in front of the Museum, and a colorful terrazzo floor in the Museum’s rotunda features a campfire scene with enduring themes from Texas’ past. The Museum also has a Cafe with indoor and outdoor seating and a Museum Store with something for the Texan in everyone.

Texas State Capitol building with extensively renovated grounds featuring native Texas plants and flowers. Built in 1888 of native pink granite and other Texas materials, the Texas Capitol stands 311 feet high, 14 feet higher than the nation's Capitol. Free guided tours of rotunda and its other attractions.

The University of Texas at Austin (informally University of Texas, or simply UT) is a state research university and the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, the institution has the fifth-largest single-campus enrollment in the nation, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty and staff. UT Austin is consistently ranked as one of the top public universities in the country, with highly prestigious programs in a variety of fields. Nationally, UT Austin ranked 45th amongst all universities according to U.S. News and World Report, and tied for 13th place among public universities in 2011.