Experience the best of Galveston
Galveston is a Texas barrier-island city on the Gulf of Mexico, with Victorian streets, a long seawall beach and a cruise port.
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Galveston is a barrier island city on the Gulf of Mexico, about eighty kilometres south-east of Houston, joined to the mainland by a causeway. In the late nineteenth century it was one of the wealthiest cities in Texas, and the Strand, a street of ornate iron-fronted commercial buildings, and the Victorian houses of the East End recall that period. The hurricane of 1900 killed thousands, and a long seawall and raised ground were built afterwards.
The seawall now carries a promenade beside sandy beaches, and the Pleasure Pier reaches into the Gulf with rides and games. Bishop's Palace, a Victorian mansion of stone and towers, is the best-known house, and the iron barque Elissa, built in 1877 in Scotland, is moored as a museum at the Texas Seaport Museum. A ferry crosses the ship channel to the Bolivar Peninsula, where dolphins often follow the boat, and migrating birds stop at High Island each spring.
Gulf seafood anchors the menus: shrimp, oysters, flounder, redfish and crab, served boiled, fried or in gumbo, and Galveston's old candy kitchens pull saltwater taffy. Mardi Gras brings parades to the Strand in February or March. Summers are hot and humid with warm Gulf water, and spring and autumn are best for walking the historic district.
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