For years the highest point in the city, Mount Bonnell is named after George Bonnell, a reporter who mapped and wrote about it. It played a role in the war for Texas’s independence, but after that became pretty much what it is today: a sightseeing spot. The adorably tiny peak, reached by a tricky set of steep limestone stairs, is still the place to go for rites of passage, good times, romantic moments, and other occasions that call for sweeping vistas.

Located in a lakeside villa built in 1916 and donated in 1945 by Texas legend Clara Driscoll to be used “as a Museum to bring pleasure in the appreciation of art to the people of Texas,” the Laguna Gloria site of Contemporary Austin (which has a second site at downtown’s Jones Center) does just that, with its building and setting, indoor exhibitions, its fantastic Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park, and the free-range peacocks in adjacent Mayfield Park.

Dance of the Cosmos, an interactive installation by prolific local artist Jennifer Chenowith, was inspired by “Robert Putchik’s Theory of Emotions and a Tibetan lotus mandala,” according to the artist’s statement. She also drew on her experience with her own XYZ Atlas, a Hedonic Map of Austin</i>, an interactive public art about our collective experiences,” the statement reads. The sculpture has a footprint of 20 feet and is 8 feet tall when the flower is closed (the petals open, which is really cool, too). Originally a temporary installation, it received a permanent home at Patterson Park in May.

Located on eastern side of the University of Texas campus, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library has often been decried for its monolithic scale and almost windowless travertine exterior. Nevertheless, its distinctive and late-modern design has worn well over the years. Completed in 1971, it designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Its most dramatic feature (aside from the giant, bowl-like fountain outside, also spare in design), is a Great Hall featuring four stories of archives behind glass. Sadly, the animatronic-LBJ robot that used to greet visitors from his stage-set “ranch” has had his country garb changed to a more presidential suit and now jokes around behind a podium.

The grounds of the campus that has long outgrown its “Forty Acres” nickname are full of pleasures and intrigues large and small: the history around its monolithic Main Building (aka The Tower), downtown vistas, grassy malls, and its formidable museums (The Harry Ransom Center, the Blanton Museum of Art, and the LBJ Library, for example) to the sweet, old-timey turtle pond, the legendary Cactus Cafe acoustic-music club, and the captivating architectural details everywhere you turn.

The Harry Ransom Center possesses a stunning amount of written work, from an original Gutenberg Bible to David Foster Wallace's heavily annotated self-help collection. Less well-known but equally impressive is its spectacular, wide-ranging collection and preservation of items and documents from the worlds of film, history, theater, and art. Renowned San Antonio-Austin architectural firm Lake|Flato remodeled the 1972 building in the mid-2000s, providing a bigger, more welcoming venue for its museum exhibits. The downstairs museum is open regular hours, but call ahead if you want to see some of the many wonders they keep in upstairs archives.

We highly recommend checking out the Blanton Museum displays of its massive collection and touring shows, of course, but right now we’re buzzing on this 2,715-square-foot, freestanding work by internationally renowned modernist Ellsworth Kelly. Kelly donated the design for the building shortly before his death in 2015, and it was only recently completed. It is both the only structure he designed and his final work.

Named after the legendary and begrudgingly admired Democratic dealmaker and Texas Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, this museum gained a reputation with its acquisition of recovered artifacts from a shipwrecked 17th-century French boat that was one of the state’s most important archeological’s discoveries. Now the family-friendly has loads of historic artifacts and displays, art exhibits, events, and an IMAX theater.

The goings-on in and around the state Capitol are wellsprings of drama and amusement, but the grounds are lovely, it’s one of the prettiest capitol buildings in the country, and it has a rotunda with fun acoustics. It’s full of interesting architectural details, obscure and well-known histories, and frequent displays and events, inside and outside its offices and chambers. It’s a surprisingly fun and interesting place to visit for young and old, locals and visitors—pretty much everyone, in other words.

Opened in 1915, the historic Congress Avenue theater has long been a place for Austinites to see top-notch live performances of all kinds, as well as to marvel at its lovely, lovingly restored historic interior. It’s also a great place to see films, especially in the summertime, when the amply air-conditioned theater screens a summer classics series.

The Charles E. Urdy Plaza on East 11th and Waller streets is both easy to miss and notable. Located just east of I-35, once the official dividing line of segregated Austin, the space was developed as part of a project to recognize and memorialize African American institutions along the street. The freestanding mural in the space has a tile mosaic, Rhapsody by John Yancey, on its side facing 11th Street; it’s a colorful, historically based ode to the area’s musical past. On the back is another, more abstract mural: Sankofa by Reji Thomas. Her mixed-media piece is also a commentary on history and packed with meaning, and visitors are provided a handy bench for thinking about it all or just enjoying its forms.

The American National Bank Building downtown was built in 1954 and graced with a large mural by pioneering modernist Seymour Fogel. The latter was nearly lost during the years after the bank became the state-owned Starr Building, but was gloriously restored, along with the rest of the building, by McKinney York Architects for McGarrah Jessee, an advertising firm that purchased the building. The company occupies its building in robust midcentury spirit, making it extra gratifying to pop in for a quick look, even if you don’t happen to work there.

In the 1900s, Republic Square was a community gathering and commerce spot for surrounding, mostly Latino neighborhoods of the day. By the 1970s, it had become a dusty parking lot. The city and the Austin Parks Foundation recently revived the space, and it’s now a lovely, green place to play, relax, and take in the city that surrounds it. Holly Young-Kincannon’s Blackbird sculpture, which draws inspiration from the Oaxacan pottery of Mexico and makes a nod to Austin’s grackles, is a highlight.

It’s not just a homegrown movie theater with food (though it was one of the first, and certainly the first to have a robust menu and to devise elaborate meals to complement many of its special screenings). Its nonpareil programming, first presented to a town of cinephiles, was fundamental to its success and continues to attract national attention. It invented the fanboy-arthouse-food-beer-special-interactive-event-casual-celebrity-pop-up filmgoing experience in Austin, where it still does it better than anyone else.

Austin’s museum dedicated to traditional and contemporary Mexican, Latinx, and Latin American art and culture, Mexic-Arte has been presenting some of the most impressive exhibitions and creative events in the city since 1984. Its downtown location makes it a great place for contemplative exploration amid the city’s bustle.

The small downtown civic space called Brush Square is also the location of three historic museums, all must-sees for Austin aficionados. The Joseph and Susanna Dickinson Hannig Museum is located in the former home of Dickinson, the only Anglo survivor of the Battle of the Alamo. The O. Henry Museum looks at the life of William Sidney Porter, who changed his pen name after a stint in prison and became one of the country’s most well-known short-story writers (and the namesake of a biannual “Pun-Off” that has become quite popular). The Austin Fire Museum is quite cute and operates out of a still-functional firehouse (Austin’s busiest), built in 1938.

Austin’s tallest public artwork, Tau Ceti by Josef Kristofoletti, was inspired by a star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to Earth’s sun. It was just completed in November, but the highly Instagrammable city street corner has already become a star in its own right. It rises 103 feet, or 10 floors, above the street at the corner of Brazos and East Second streets, bringing radiant color to a formerly drab parking-garage corner.

This point is a whole set of sights of its own—a self-guided tour through the historically Latinx East Cesar Chavez and Holly neighborhoods that takes visitors to significant places that cover an expansive stretch of post-Civil War American history.

Not only does South Austin’s hilltop campus have one of the best views of Austin; the campus itself is lovely and dotted with significant buildings both historic and contemporary. Be sure to check out the landmarked Main Building, as well as the Student Residences and Dining Hall, designed by 2016 Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena, and Doyle Hall, redesigned with an addition by Specht Harpman and completed in 2009.

An ever-evolving structure made of durable castoffs (wheels, toys, electronics, etc.), the Cathedral of Junk is one man’s vision, and he has been realizing that vision in his South Austin yard since 1989. It’s a nifty labyrinth at this point, and it’s old-school Austin Weird™.