The first-ever audio tour of the Alamo has just been launched, one of several new attractions awaiting visitors to San Antonio this summer.

For $5, visitors can rent a hand-held player to listen to the 50-minute tour as they walk through the historic site. The tour incorporates stories about the famed battle and a narration of some of the accounts from Alamo survivors. You can hear a clip from the tour at http://www.antennaaudio.com/AlamoClip.

The Alamo is the most visited destination in Texas, with over 2.5 million visitors annually. The famed battle took place in 1836 when about 180 Texans seeking independence from Mexico held off several thousand Mexican soldiers. The conflict ended in a massacre, with frontiersman Davy Crockett and Louisiana knife-fighter Jim Bowie among the men who died.

In other tourism news from San Antonio this season, a new Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium has opened in Alamo Plaza, across from the Alamo site and next to Ripley's Louis Tussaud's Plaza Wax Museum. The Odditorium claims to have in its collection the mortician's toe tag from Lee Harvey Oswald, a 512-pound iron meteorite, locks of hair that belonged to Marilyn Monroe and a 23-foot Eiffel Tower made from toothpicks. Details at http://www.ripleys.com.

Read more at: www.mercurynews.com/travel/ci_9393138.