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Boulder, Colorado
A Small-scale City
with Big-time Charm
with Big-time Charm
By Jenn Director Knudsen
Last fall, I spent a long weekend in Boulder, Colo. I didn't go as a tourist, but I left as one.
I traveled there from Portland, Ore., to catch up with a very close friend. We were sure to spend some time in cafes and, Heather being the outdoor lover she is, I knew she'd also take me to see her relatively new environs.
A recent transplant to Boulder's north end from Fort Collins, Colo., Heather previously had lived in Western Massachusetts; Berkeley, Calif.; Boston and New York.
Upon arriving in Boulder – home to the nearly 29,000-student-strong University of Colorado-Boulder – I immediately understood why Heather had cherry picked the college town as her permanent home. It's a crisp, airy, small-scale city that offers so much to do and see for the outdoor enthusiast, bibliophile, foodie and lover of art and retail therapy.
So, though we did spend some hours in cafes (and wine bars), most of our catching up occurred all over the city and its environs, both indoors and outdoors. We hiked in the Flatirons, foothills to the majestic Rocky Mountains; we accomplished some boutique shopping along a downtown pedestrian promenade; we sniffed our way through a famous tea company's plant; and we rested and nibbled at a gorgeous tea house. We even took in the then-newly-opened Denver Art Museum's Hamilton building, only a 40-minute drive southeast from our home base.
I didn't visit Boulder intending to be a tourist, but I quickly became (a very wide-eyed) one. You, too, should explore this city of about 84,000 people and serrated-edge mountaintops that knife into an endless blue sky.
The center of Boulder is very pedestrian-friendly, with its Pearl Street Mall that for a number of blocks is accessible only to walkers. Along this wide avenue are myriad boutiques that encourage window shopping – for clothing, snacks, stacks of books, tchotchkes and high-end paper products.
