Three-day at Denver, Colorado
We have heard many good things about Denver area, so we planned this short, 3-day travel at the end of this summer.
Day 1 (Friday)
We took an early Southwest flight from Portland, Oregon and arrived at Denver International Airport at around 9 am. It is a huge airport. We arrived at C gates and took the inter-terminal train to the baggage claim terminal.
We are lucky because Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) is offering zero fare throughout August this year. We hoop on the A Line Commuter Train to Denver Union Station. It takes about 40 minutes.
Note! If there is no zero fare offer, we will download the mobile app from Mobile Ticketing, and buy the regional day pass from the mobile ticketing app. This covers all our public transportation need at Denver.
Union Station is a nice, historical station. There are several restaurants inside. However, at this point, we are not really hungry and we need some caffeine for the morning. We head to Huckleberry Roasters. They have pretty good latte.
After the coffee, we take the bus to our hotel to store our luggage first. We stay at Hyatt Place Denver/Downtown. It turns out that our room is ready for us. Therefore, we check in and put our luggage in our room.
Note! Another option other than regular bus is Free MallRide along 16-th street.
After some short rest, we walk to Colorado State Capitol, which is close to our hotel. The state capitol building is located at the right side of the Civic Center Park. Along the way in the park, we can see the Denver City Council building and some sculptures.
The capitol building is open to public from Monday to Friday. They also offer guided tour. Guided tour includes the access to the dome, which is not accessible by public. When we arrive at the information desk, we find out that we need to wait for another 40+ minutes for the next guided tour. Since we are not that interested in going to the dome area, we decide to tour around the building ourselves. It is a nice walk in the building.
Our next stop is Larimer Square. We take the bus from the state capitol to Larimer Square. We do not find Larimer Square to be interesting though. The street is pretty short and there are not many shops or restaurants. We have our lunch at Bǎo Brewhouse nearby. It is just ok.
After lunch, we walk over to Confluence Park. It is at the junction at South Platte River and Cherry Creek. Originally, we thought that there will be many water activities by the river. We misunderstand it. We see only few people playing by the river and the river does not seem to be clean at all.
From the park, we walk along South Platte River Trail to Meow Wolf Denver’s Convergence Station. It is a 30-minute walk. The walk itself is just ok since the trail is not really a sight-seeing spot.
At Meow Wolf, we buy the tickets on-site. We did not reserve the tickets in advance since we found that there are many tickets available yesterday. We enjoy Meow Wolf a lot. It is a fun and unique experience. We spend almost 3 hours at Meow Wolf.
Then we take the train back to Union Station. We have our dinner at Blazing Bird near Union Station. It is fine, but we like Dave’s Hot Chicken a lot better. If we can choose again, we probably will get our dinner at Whole Food market nearby.
Day 2 (Saturday)
In the morning, we walk to Avis near our hotel to get our rental car. Then we drive to to Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre. It is beyond our expectation. We never saw music venue like this before. Next time, we definitely will plan for attending an evening concert here.
Note! Check out the concert schedule before you visit it. The amphitheatre will be closed some hours before the concert. We are lucky that we arrive early. There is an afternoon concert preparation going on. The amphitheatre is closed about 40 minutes after we arrive.
Since the amphitheatre is closed, we drive to Trading Post, which is still open. We take the short Trading Post Trail. The sun is coming out so it is hot. However, the view of the red rocks is great.
Our next stop is Dinosaur Ridge. We drive to the main visitor center to sign up for the group guided bus tour. You can also walk the trail to see all the sites and the walk is free. However, we all think that the fee for the group guided bus tour is totally worth it. First, we do not need to walk in the sun. Second, our guide did a great job to make it very informational and interesting. If we just walk the trail ourselves, we probably won’t find this that interesting.
After some dinosaur sighting, we drive to City of Golden to have our lunch. We eat at Bob’s Atomic Burgers. They have good burgers and hot dogs. Then we park our car at the free Clear Creek parking site and visit The Golden Mill. It is a fun drinking experience. It is more expensive than other beer places; however, we think that it is a good tourist spot to visit.
After some beer tasting, we walk along the Clear Creek Trail for a short while. It seems to be a fun place for water activities. The water also seems to be pretty clean. However, at this point, the late-afternoon thunderstorm is picking up its force. So we walk back to our car and drive back to Denver to return our car.
Note! If the weather is nice, we will also hike the Triceratops Trail.
On our way from Avis rental car to our hotel, we walk over to the Convention Center to check out The Big Blue Bear. It an interesting artwork.
Day 3 (Sunday)
This morning, we check out from our hotel but store our luggage at the hotel front-desk. Then we take Lyft to Denver Museum of Nature & Science, which is at the right side of City Park. We reserved our tickets in advance. If there is still spot available, you can also buy the tickets on-site. The museum is well-maintained and well-designed. My whole family like the museum. We have our lunch inside the museum and spend 5 hours inside the museum.
In the mid-afternoon, we take Lyft from the museum to Cherry Creek North. It is a nice neighborhood with many boutiques, restaurants, and galleries. We like this area a lot better than the 16th Street Mall. If we can plan again, we will skip 16h Street Mall and visit Cherry Creek North directly. We walk around the area a bit and have our coffee at Aviano Coffee. We order ice latte and it is good.
After the coffee, it is about time to get to the airport. We take Lyft to Union Station, with a stop at the hotel to get our luggage. From Union Station, we take A line train to the airport.
Our thoughts
We walk along the 16th Street Mall (which is a main tourist spot) several times. We do not really like it. It does not seem to be a good and safe area. We like Denver’s surrounding areas though. We probably will drive to those areas directly next time and skip visiting Denver.