This is the Riverwalk, that everybody knows -- after the Alamo, San Antonio's biggest tourist attraction. It's downtown, lively, colorful and crowded most hours of the afternoon and evening. But there is a part of the Riverwalk that my daughter and I walked last week - the new northern extension, which follows the San Antonio River far into the old suburbs of Alamo Heights. It opened in 2009 ... and this is what we saw ...

The San Antonio Museum of Art ... it's situated in the old Lone Star Brewery complex. The hanging fish are cheerfully painted, and illuminated from within at night - there are about thirty of them, hanging from the underside of the I-35 overpass.

The fish - up close. The whole stretch of this part of the Riverwalk is adorned with art ... mostly tilework. Grottos, fountains, ornamental faux-bois benches, tile murals, reconstructed marshlands ... and gardens.

Garden and suspension bridge, near San Antonio Museum of Art.

Storm drain cover, underneath bridge, adorned with tilework. The storm drain cover was manufactured in Berkeley, California -- back when the Bay Area actually had industry.

Reconstructed marshlands, with waterfall, lily pads and ... no, that's not a sculptured bird. It's real. Just holding very, very still.

Don't know what it is - we've spotted them along the wet parts of the Salado Creek Greenway, too.

They do run the flat-boats up into this part of the Riverwalk, as more of a water-taxi. There are landings and tie-ups, all along.

At the Navarro Street overpass, a portrait in tile of an early city father, and the parking lot for the local Channel 4 affiliate.

The clubhouse of the oldest VFW post in Texas ... also on the riverbank. In the mid-19th century, residents like Mary Maverick and visitors like Frederick Law Ohlmstead noted that the best residences in town were built on the river, and that many gardens boasted bathing cabins ... and people went swimming of an afternoon, to beat the summer heat.

Quackers...

Mini-quackers...

And a hawk, luncheon-dining al fresco, on a pigeon.

Approaching downtown, on foot by the river...

An arcade, adorned with different, geometrically shaped arches...

Approaching downtown, some of the art adorning the underpasses is ... of selective appeal. I don't know what this piece is called, but I call it "The AC Filters of the Gods."

Many of the buildings lining the banks of the river still look out to it, or have been refinished to do so...

Deep city canyons ... but always with a patch of blue...

...and green.

And blue and green... this is a tile-adorned bench, at the landing by the School of Art and Craft, which once was the boarding school for girls run by the Ursulines...

And green and blue watercolor ... with quackers. That's how I spent my last Thursday ... you?