Travel America: Denver: Western zest and a youthful ambience flavor the Mile High City

Colorado

If you're staying at a downtown hotel, the best of Denver is right outside your door. Highly walkable, Colorado's capital contrasts sharply with many Western cities that have no real center.

Start your explorations along 16th Street Mall, a mile-long pedestrian promenade that offers a good introduction to the Mile High City. Lined with shops, restaurants, and outdoor cafes, the mall is served by free shuttle buses that come as often as every 75 seconds on weekdays. Or take a clip-clopping horse carriage ride.

Street entertainers add to the festivity along this banner-festooned strip landscaped with fountains and flower gardens. Souvenir shops abound with Western gear and crafts, Native American artwork, and Denver sports team mementos.

Anchoring one end of 16th Street Mall is Denver Pavilions, a two-square-block complex with a 15 screen cinema, night spots, and restaurants like Maggiano's Little Italy, Hard Rock Cafe, and Wolfgang Puck Grand Care. Among the 50 stores are NikeTown and Virgin Megastore. The Shops at Tabor Center, a glass-enclosed mall eight blocks away, house an ESPN Zone and other familiar shops and eateries.

Another visitor magnet is LoDo (Lower Downtown), a hip district where neglected Victorian buildings and warehouses have been converted to restaurants, brew pubs, and art galleries. A walking tour passes 33 bronze plaques that tell the area's history.

The coziest place to be on a rainy day is the Tattered Cover, a LoDo bookstore where you can curl up with a good book on well-worn sofas and easy chairs tucked among the massive shelves. This branch of the Tattered Cover ("best bookstore in America" according to the New York Times) fills three levels of a former commercial building that sports high ceilings and exposed support beams.

Next door, Dixon's Downtown Grill, known for its margaritas and Southwestern dishes, occupies a 1907 warehouse once used by farm implement and coffee companies. Have the meat loaf platter or a buffalo burger on sourdough. The Nutty Cheese Salad is an unusual blend of mixed greens with sliced bananas, popped wheat, sunflower seeds, toasted almonds, cashews, avocado, olives, tomato, and cheddar and fontina cheeses.

Coors Field, the classic brick stadium where the Colorado Rockies play major league baseball, has been bringing crowds to LoDo since 1995 and actually is credited with the historic district's renaissance.

Fans in the stands can expect to see plenty of home runs--the Mile High City's thin air makes the ball travel farther. It's "baseball with an altitude." The row of purple seats is exactly one mile above sea level. Stadium tours are available year-round.

Not far away, on the northwest edge of downtown near the South Platte River, are Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Denver Broncos play football, and the Pepsi Center, home of pro hockey's Colorado Avalanche and basketball's Denver Nuggets.

Family favorites along the revitalized riverfront include Colorado's Ocean Journey, an aquarium; the Children's Museum; and Six Flags Elitch Gardens, America's only downtown theme park.

Kids find more themed entertainment at Casa Bonita, an all-you-can Mexican restaurant just outside the downtown area. Behind the elegant Spanish colonial facade are noisy dining nooks nestled among grottoes, waterfalls, and caves to explore. Cliff divers make "death-defying" plunges into a lagoon 30 feet below. Cowboy gunfights, strolling mariachis, magicians, puppet shows, and an angry gorilla named Chiquita spice the experience. A giant video arcade spans two levels.

For sweeping views of the city and surrounding Rocky Mountains, trek up to the open-air observation deck of the golden-domed Colorado State Capitol, located on the south end of downtown, close to Civic Center Park. Nearby points of interest include the 28-sided Denver Art Museum (with the world's best Native American collection) and Colorado History Museum.

City Park, a huge green space two miles east of downtown, also boasts impressive mountain views, plus two world-class attractions--the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (with its dynamic new Space Odyssey exhibit) and Denver Zoo.

For a once-over-lightly look at Denver, Gray Line offers a three-hour tour ($25) every morning.

Venturing to the outskirts of Denver, meet Mother Nature--and even see buffalo herds--at the city's mountain parks or visit Buffalo Bill's Grave & Museum, a shrine to showman and frontier scout William F. Cody.

Just an hour or so west of Denver are historic mining towns worth a peek. Central City and neighboring Black Hawk, 34 miles from Denver, offer more than 30 gambling casinos.

Georgetown, 42 miles from Denver, is one of Colorado's prettiest villages, with more than 200 restored Victorian homes. Take a scenic ride on the Georgetown Loop Railroad, a vintage steam train.

The same company operates one of Colorado's other great excursion trains, the Royal Gorge Route Railroad, which travels alongside the Arkansas River from Canon City, southwest of Colorado Springs.

Contact: Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, (800) 393-8559; www.denver.org.