Blanco is a little town, known in recent years as the Lavender capitol of Texas. The downtown square is small and relatively full of businesses.
The town square is what I’d call middling – not yet completely full of shops and restaurants but not a ghost town either. There is a pharmacy, a few antique shops, some restaurants, a gallery filled with local pottery and art, a small museum in the historic Blanco County Courthouse and a small visitor’s bureau office.
Our favorite stop was Cranberry’s Antique Mall. It was full of well priced, good quality items. This was not one of those shops with jumbled booths full of random stuff. There was an entire section full of substantial furniture pieces and many booths featuring glassware, linens and all manner of unique items. Items were well priced and of good quality. The Hill Country is known for its antique shopping so sometimes you run into some pretty high prices and some pretty fancy stuff. Cranberry’s was full of items in a range of prices. And, my favorite part was the large selection of spurs, cowboy hats and other Western memorabilia. I can’t say whether the spurs and such were antique but they were well used and would make a nice touch in a Western décor.
The Blanco County Courthouse looked more like a giant house than what you would traditionally think of as a courthouse. There are no domes or big statues at the top. It is a beautiful building though, and inside you can read about the history of Blanco and the courthouse itself.
Brieger Pottery is also on the square and is full of beautiful, functional pottery. I love to bring home trip souvenirs that I can incorporate in to my daily life like a mug or a bowl, and this is definitely the kind of place you can do that.
There are many other interesting things to see and do around Blanco – several Lavender farms to visit, Blanco State Park and more antique and specialty stores scattered throughout town that we did not have time to visit. I don’t think I would call Blanco a destination on it’s own unless you were going for the Lavender Festival in May, but it is a nice stop if you are exploring the Hill Country area.
