• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Inside the Saint Cecilia.   (Photo: Courtesy of Hotel Saint Cecilia)

Explore lively South Congress Avenue on a Gary Fisher bike from the Hotel Saint Cecilia (rooms from $250). The fourteen-room sanctuary opened in December 2008 with Mexican Coke in the minibar and Geneva turntables to play in your suite. (Borrow LPs from the front desk.)

Soak sore muscles in the rooftop pool of the Hilton on East 4th Street (from $149), an ideal base for bar-hopping downtown’s live-venue and warehouse district. The newly opened Lance Armstrong Bikeway is blocks away.

Your room at The Four Seasons (rooms from $295) comes with an Electra-Townie beach cruiser. Ride it along the Town Lake bike path to get a close-up look as 1.5 million Mexican freetail bats begin their sunset surge into the big Texas sky. Head back in time for the hotel's cut-rate happy hour (half-price wines and apps) on the back patio.

Published on Aug 13, 2009 as a web exclusive.