The Paseo del Río runs a level below downtown, a landscaped channel of the San Antonio River lined with bald cypress, stone footbridges, restaurants and barges. Robert Hugman drew the plan in the late 1920s, when the alternative on the table was to pave the river over after a catastrophic flood. The downtown loop is the busy stretch and reads as a tourist strip, fairly enough. Walk north instead: the Museum Reach runs up to the Pearl past Donald Lipski's F.I.S.H. installation under I-35, and the Mission Reach runs eight miles south along restored riverbank to the missions, which is the better half in both directions.