A Weekend in Denver

On the first day of our trip, I checked in to Hotel Teatro, Denver’s original boutique hotel. The hotel is in the old tramcar building and has a luxurious historic feel with ornately embellished ceilings, marble details, and historic accents. It has a luxurious, upscale feel, but without making you feel underdressed in jeans either.

I settled into my room and dropped off my luggage before taking a short walk over to the High Times dispensary, because “When in the Mile High City…”, right? Then, I went to The Study inside Hotel Teatro for some live music by Darcy Nelson, who plays here on occasion and brought such a beautiful energy to the space.

After she finished playing, I popped over to The Nickel, a restaurant and bar inside Hotel Teatro named after the original tramcar fare of five cents. The dinner here was phenomenal with herbs grown in-house and locally sourced ingredients. The cocktails were thoughtfully curated and absolutely wonderful. I took Darcy’s suggestion and had the Nickel Burger with local dry-aged beef. It did not disappoint!

There were many people having dinner before heading over to the Denver Performing Arts Complex down the street, which I did not plan to for this trip, but may be a nice add-on for your itinerary!

On the second day, I visited the Butterfly Pavilion, which is an incredible zoo for invertebrates that has a lovely tropical butterfly exhibit. There are also exhibits with jellyfish and sea creatures as well as insects like tarantulas. I learned a lot here, like that tarantulas shed their skins like snakes. Wild! My favorite part was the butterfly exhibit because it felt like walking into a jungle with all the plants, flowers, and various butterflies roaming around.

That evening, after returning to the hotel, I went for a sunset stroll by the river on the Cherry Creek Trail just a few minutes walk from the hotel. This is a beautiful hiking trail that has been decorated with large mural art by various artists along the walls on either side of the trail. Denver has such a vibrant art scene, so it was cool to see the variety of styles and themes incorporated into the various murals along my walk.

On the next day I enjoyed some lunch at the Study inside the hotel. They serve brunch until 2 pm and also are open 24 hours for whenever you’d like to enjoy a nice latte or a cocktail, which I thought would be such a thoughtful convenience for those early morning, red-eye flights.

After lunch, I took a stroll over to Larimer Square and the 16th street mall for some shopping. I enjoyed the sounds of Paul Noel Fiorino busking at the 16th street mall with his beautiful guitar strumming and harmonica song. I also found a really cool thrift shop bar in Larimer Square that I thought had a fun vibe, but there are plenty of cool shops and restaurants in this area.

After shopping, I visited the Denver Botanical Garden, a beautiful 23-acre garden in the Cheesman Park neighborhood, just a short Uber ride from the hotel. Here I wandered through various theme gardens and enjoyed many varieties of flowers in bloom.

On the final day, I packed my bags and headed down to the Study for an early morning matcha (seriously thank God they were open!) before heading off to Washington Park for a nice stroll in the park. There are pick-up volleyball games here every weekend on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and lots of friendly people hanging out. It’s a huge park and I could’ve spent an entire day here, but I had to head to the airport.