Downtown Denver

Last Thursday we spent the day touring downtown Denver. It's an easy 20-minute drive east of Golden. Our first stop was the Capitol Building. A gorgeous building made of granite on the outside. And the outside of the dome was appropriately covered in gold sheeting. Very stately. The inside was ornate with shiny brass everything: staircases, light fixtures, elevator doors, and water fountains. Everything glowed. Not to mention the rare rose onyx and carved woodwork. It was enough to give us capitol-envy! If only Jeb Bush would move out of our skyscraper and back into a domed-capitol building.

Then we walked along the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall. This area is closed to cars, but the city offers a free bus service that runs up and down 16th Street. You get so used to not seeing any cars, that its hard to remember not to step in front of a bus. We liked the downtown area. It's clean, there were entertainers every other block, the homeless that we saw didn't panhandle, interesting buildings, and lots of new construction.

One of the prettiest churches we saw was the Immaculate Conception. We sat inside for a few minutes and were absolutely awed by its beauty inside as well. The altar was almost all white and repeated the outside design of the church with the spires. And the stained-glass windows were numerous and immense.

















We did attempt to get a tour at the US Mint, but they were booked up for the day. But we enjoyed our day walking around downtown.