Marble Falls & Lake LBJ: Lakeside Town, Hill Country Breakfast & Waterfront Afternoon

The Colorado River dams created a series of Highland Lakes reservoirs in the 1930s, and Marble Falls sits at the Lake LBJ confluence where Johnson Creek enters the Colorado. The downtown waterfront park looks across to the granite cliffs that give the town its name — the original marble falls were inundated by Max Starcke Dam in 1951. The Main Street commercial district has a working bookshop, local art galleries, and the oldest operating saloon in Burnet County.

The constant-level Lake LBJ is the most developed of the Highland Lakes for waterfront recreation — marinas, water skiing, and fishing for largemouth bass and white perch. The Wirtz Dam area at the lake's lower end has public access to the shoreline and a boat launch; the lake's constant level (maintained by the Lower Colorado River Authority) makes it reliable year-round for paddling and swimming from the limestone shelves.