Our Honest View on Fredericksburg

On this episode of TravelEssary, we're giving you our honest view of Fredericksburg. Do we love it? Do we hate it? Is it family friendly? What is your take on the town? We would love to hear from you.

*Some links you may find useful*

Enchanted Rock - https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/enchanted-rock
Twisted Sisters Bake Shop - https://www.twistedsistersbakeshop.com/
Rustlin' Rob's - https://www.rustlinrobs.com/
Wildseed Farms - https://www.wildseedfarms.com/

Transcript

We're the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On this episode of TravelEssary. We're going to talk about all things, Fredericksburg, Texas. Let's chat.  

Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode. As we talk about Fredericksburg, Texas.  Now 

Fredericksburg, Texas is a really interesting place. It is. One of those small communities and I mean, small it's less than 12,000 people, so it's a small community, but man, does it offer. A whole lot of stuff.  It,  offers. A. Plethora of shopping opportunities. There are beautiful scenes that you can go see. There are just all sorts of different activities that you can do in Fredericksburg.

One of our favorite things that we typically do, or we go, or we've been quite a few times too, is enchanted rock. 

Now in Shannon rock is not inside Fredericksburg. But it is still really close by. It is a short trip right down the road. And you go to this. Beautiful place. . And you climb up on this massive rock. It's huge. 

And while you're on top of it, it's so picturesque. , you can see for miles. It is quite a hike. So if you take children that don't quite walk themselves or has the endurance to  carry on. You could be carrying them quite a ways.  And if you go, I do suggest that you pack. Some drinks. I pack a little snack. Or even better yet. Pack a lunch. Hike up there, have your lunch , while the scenery is beautiful. And.  While you're enjoying, the view that you're going to have. 

You could have a little lunch up there. Take your time and then travel on back and you can go into Fredericksburg, which is just a short little drive away and enjoy all the shops and all the restaurants and everything that there is to do in Fredericksburg.

So Fredericksburg is actually one of the most. Touristy towns in Texas. It's a very small town, but it is one of the most visited towns in Texas.  Whether you're a Texas native or you're from outside of the state or even the country.  It's visited so much for such a small town. And anytime you see a post on Facebook or Reddit and people are asking, Hey, we're going to visit Texas for the first time. 

Where should we go? Everyone will always tell them, come to the hill country,  in Fredericksburg is in the hill country. It's one of the top destinations in the hill country. It has such a strong German heritage. As strong German influence, there are German bakeries and restaurants everywhere.

It was actually founded in 1846 by German immigrants.  And you can see that by the architecture,  the food that you're eating, the influence is just everywhere  and every year they host an October Fest, which is probably its most visited time of the year. 

And whenever you think of German food and the influence that they have.  You got to think about the bakeries you got to think about.  The good sweets and the pastries. Oh my goodness. The Patriots were really good. We went into several. Several. And there are several that are there.  Into big shops. And. Man, everything looked amazing, but  we wanted to get the one that had all of our favorites. The one that definitely looked the best. 

And the one that we voted on and the one that we decided on was the twisted sisters bake shop. It is a must go to. , oh my goodness. We got so much stuff that I'm so glad that. Fredericksburg has a really long downtown area, their whole shopping areas on east and west main street. And. With all the bakeries there. , you don't feel bad by getting sweets because you're going to be walking them off.

I never feel bad about getting sweets, but yes, you're right. 

You're going to do a lot of walking and twisted sisters was amazing. , it was our favorite bakery  although there were a lot of good bakeries. Most people will direct you towards the old German bakery.  It's a restaurant and a bakery, but I'm going to be a hundred percent honest. It was my least favorite place of all the places that we ate. 

, it was none of our favorites. I don't think a single one of us enjoyed it. The baby wouldn't even eat. The food that we ordered. And he's not picky. But twisted sisters was just beyond compare  everything we had was melt in your mouth. Delicious. 

They actually have a chocolate shop that's there. That is. Really good. And they have all the chocolate that you could think of all the different variations,  so if you're looking for chocolate, that's definitely there. But staying on the topic of sweets. What I really enjoyed about it, of walking up and down the streets is a lot of the shops that you go to have that nostalgic feel. 

 We went into one and they had all sorts of different sodas. They had a bacon flavored syrup. Soda that Justin got and.  Your first streak. You're like, huh? That's not bad. It's not quite good either. And then the after taste of bacon hits you and you're like, okay.  But it was still just a cool experience to be able to go inside of that shop and  look at the different  odd ball flavors that you could get. 

, now that I'm an adult candy shops are not my favorite. Fredericksburg has all kinds of little food shops.   Most of them will give you samples. 

 One place that we went into had 

every flavor of popcorn that you can imagine. There were flavors I would've never have thought of to be put on popcorn. And the smell of the place was amazing. And you have places that sell fudge and you have places that sell jerky. 

One of the places that we went in had different jars of honey and jams and peppers.  All different kinds of flavor, just everything that you can imagine that goes in a jar. And they let you sample every. One that they had, like, you could put it on a cracker or something. And it was delicious. 

There were so many things that I wanted to buy. I limited myself to one thing. But it's called Russlynn robs, Texas gourmet foods. Highly recommend going there, but only if you're willing to spend money because you are not going to want to leave without spending something. And Russlynn robs.  I mean,  doing a quick, just Google search is a 4.8, which is,  as far as Google.  Reviews go. , you really don't get any higher than that with the amount of reviews that they have, and they have everything, barbecue sauce, they have hot sauce. 

They have jams and jellies. Anything pickled that you can think of? You literally go down section after section after section. And it's just food after food  and Misty is absolutely right.  If you go in there. Be prepared to spend some money, be expecting to spend some money because you're going to find something that you're going to like, because it was just that good now. I was able to get Misty. Away. With only buying one or two things because we've, could've spent.  Well, all of our time and all of our money. If that one store.  And the people that ran it were super nice.  They were offering samples. Because, you know, they're secure and they're proud of going, Hey, if you taste this, you're going to like it, it may sound weird. 

It may not look the best appetizing, but if you try it, you're going to like it. And you can definitely check out.  Russell and robs Texas gourmet foods.  It's worth the trip almost all by itself. And that's not even including all the other stores that you can go to.  And whenever Misty was talking about shopping,  Ladies and gentlemen. This place is known for shopping now, Fredericksburg.  , whenever it was really starting to come around  whenever the city was finding its identity.  It's was really a.  An antique place. You went there and they had antique cabinets. 

They had antique shelves. , the old style clothes, it was really geared towards the ANSI park.  The last time that we went was just a couple months ago.  It's.  I don't want to say it's lost its identity as an antique place, because it still has a lot of those stores. But a lot of the newer stores that have come up, or a lot of the newer brands there,  put a twist on the ANSI where, ,  It's more novelty than antique. 

And there's boutiques everywhere. And.  If you like shopping, even if you like window shopping, we like window shopping, just  walking around and just seeing what people have and just looking at things. 

Fredericksburg will not let you down. You can definitely go there and shop to your heart's content. Now while you're shopping.  Almost every shopping place down there, or a lot of the shopping place, I want to say every shopping place, but a lot of the shopping places down there. They do offer adult beverages of some kind matter of fact, we were seeing that. One store was offering  a free adult drink.  If you bought something.

And so as far as taking children down there, especially young children, if you're not comfortable with.  People walking around with an open container or. Because there are a lot of.   Drinking establishments. , wineries that are down there and. A vast majority of the people that go  do enjoy those beverages. We do not enjoy those beverages.  And it was just one of those things where I could see later in the evening where it could feel a little bit uncomfortable if you do have younger children and that's just not really your style.  

Yeah. I'm not going to say that Fredericksburg isn't kid friendly. But there's not a lot to do for small children. There's not a lot for them to enjoy. Most of the shops are geared towards adults and things that adults would enjoy. Most of the food is geared towards adults. There are a few. Like toy stores and stuff that are downtown. 

But honestly, even the toy store that we spent forever in was mostly vintage toys. And things  from our childhood and our parents' childhood, more than it was modern day toys, we were having to explain to our children what some of the toys were.  And there's a lot of alcohol. There is a lot of alcohol. The people you pass on the street or walking down the sidewalk, they're all going to have alcohol. 

We went in the middle of the day. Last time. Literally like. 10 to two in the afternoon. And there was a significant smell of alcohol on some of the people that we passed and even one or two people that were already starting to stumble. So if that's not something that you feel comfortable being around then I, I really don't recommend Fredericksburg for you.   And if you're looking for something for the whole family to do,  was fine for us, but as our infant grows older to be ages, you know, three, four or five, he's not going to enjoy that place at all our teenagers and enjoy the shopping. And of course, all of the bakeries and the baby enjoys the bakeries and he doesn't really care where we go and what we do right now. But as far as taking small children, I just don't think that they're going to enjoy it very much. 

And even though that we didn't really enjoy everyone walking around with alcohol and, you know, Kind of stumbling and we had to definitely protect our little one from a few people.  We still thoroughly enjoyed going into the shops, looking around. And. Eating all the food. No. 

Misty's already talked about the old German bakery. 

And while it wasn't our favorite, there are other places that you can go to. They had a  barbecue that they were selling at one place. There's another place that you didn't get hamburgers. There was another place that you could get sandwiches and that's several ice cream shops.  That worked really scrumptious. 

  Like Missy said, we went in the middle of the day. So it was a little hot. I could definitely see an evening where it's a nice stroll, the grab some ice cream, because I love ice cream a lot. And.  Thoroughly and enjoying that.  And

if you're not looking for shopping or. For the bakeries or the novelty shops or anything of that nature, Fredericksburg still has a whole lot more to offer.  

And if you're a nature, loving family. Other than, and chanted rock, there are things to do around Fredericksburg. So the largest working wildflower farm in the entire United States is actually located near Fredericksburg. It's called wild seed farms. And it spans over 200 acres. Talk about.  Picture perfect in the spring. 

Absolutely picture. Perfect. Perfect place to go through. In fact, all around Fredericksburg. If you go in the spring. You're going to see so many wild flowers. , And the elders in our church actually used to take a yearly trip just to go to Fredericksburg and do some shopping and to view the flowers. Because . 

The flower viewing is so well known in that area.  If you've never seen Texas in the spring time. But you've heard about the balloon on its, because we Texans love our blue bonnets in this brain. You need to go to Fredericksburg in the spring and look at all of the blue bonnets and all of the wild flowers. All of the Indian paint brushes. 

It's just, it's so beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful.  You can walk through the flower fields. There's trails on the wild seed farms that you can do. 

And honestly,  Although it's really good for sightseeing. It's a really perfect place for pictures. 

 The flowers are beautiful outside the city and inside the city.  They've really incorporated the flowers into a lot of their museums in front of their courthouse is beautifully manicured lawns and they really.  They really take on.  The identity of the wild rustic feel that you would consider. A small town in Texas to be like, I don't want to say that Fredericksburg is only popular because it is next to San Antonio. And if you're looking for things to do inside San Antonio, check out our other podcasts, where we talk about San Antonio. But it's only a small day trip to Fredericksburg 

so if you're in the neighborhood, swing on over 

it's really beautiful.  If you get the opportunity and you want to check something out that doesn't have to do with a metropolitan area, I  suggest going to Fredericksburg, Texas.  

And a lot of people may not realize this, but Fredericksburg , is known for having some of the best bed and breakfast and all of Texas. You can find so many different bed and breakfast. In Fredericksburg. It really is. Uh, couples destination. Yes. We take our family there and lots of people do, but I really feel like Fredericksburg is a couples destination.  , they have some of the best bed and breakfast. 

You have wineries and breweries. You have. , shopping, you have your antique shopping, your boutique shopping.  Your bakeries, which might be for the whole family, but let's be honest. We adults do tend to enjoy it a little more than our children. I really feel like it's a couples destination.  For honeymoons or just weekend getaways as a couple. 

It's perfect. But you can bring your family to.

 Although it is, I would say geared towards adults, you can bring your children to.   And our honest review of Fredericksburg is. Yes. We like Fredericksburg. Yes, we have a good time while we're there. 

There's not very many places that we don't enjoy because we tend to make the best of where we are as long as we're together. And everyone's filling well, and  we have plenty of food. We usually have a great time together. But Fredericksburg is not somewhere that we want to visit often.  Now when we're driving through. We're going to stop and we're going to hit up a bakery. 

Some of the shops. But our family, it is not a destination that we go to.  Just to spend the day.  That's not going to happen. We're not going to go spend a week in there.

It really doesn't fit. 

Our criteria as a family. Of what a good time is.  I don't enjoy having to, you know, get slightly inebriated people away from my baby because they're UHIN and KU. And in his face. While Regan of alcohol.  And it's not like when you go to Frederick Berg, there's just drunks everywhere. It's not like that. 

But there's certainly more drinking. On the streets than in any other town that I have. Been through. 

So our honest review, if you like antique and boutique shopping. Cause that's. The majority of what is in Fredericksburg or you like specialty foods and bakeries. Then Fredericksburg is a good stop. The things outside of Fredericksburg. Like the flowers and chanted rock. Also great stops.

It really just depends on what fits 

your family's needs. And once. 

We do know a lot of people who absolutely love Fredericksburg. And they're always going to recommend it when people ask for a place to stay for the weekend or for an anniversary trip or something like that.  But then we also know people who absolutely loathed Fredericksburg.  We have several friends who says that it just does not float their boat. 

It's not their cup of tea. They would prefer going to Waco or Dallas or even Austin. 

 Fredericksburg is definitely not for everyone. We can't say. That. It is. Uh, family friendly destination for every family. We can't say that.   But it might be for your family

So if you've never been, do a little bit of research, 

And find out if it meets your needs.    Next week, we are going to talk about something that might actually feel like as   geared towards adults, but our children actually enjoy. And that is Texas markets. Texas has so many fantastic. Flea markets. And we want to share with you some of our favorites and what they have to offer.  So be sure to join us again next week. 

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