Debbie

I'm looking for a romantic, centrally located Colorado cabin or condo for rent in the first week of July. I prefer modern accomodations for two with a hot tub in a rustic mountain setting. We'll want to try a variety of activities, the zoo and other cultural stuff in Denver as well as rafting, but I'm not focusing on a particular area of the state. I'm reading alot about Colorado Springs and the Royal Gorge. I visited Denver and Central City as a child and my fiance has never seen mountains, so we want to make the most of this trip all around. I'd welcome any ideas and experiences you have for destination and accomodation planning. Thanks.

kima

Debbie you have got me a bit confused. Do you want Denver or the Mtns? Or Both. You might want to stay one night in Denver. For a honeymoon The Greagory Inn in Denver http://www.gregoryinn.com/home.html is worth looking at.

For a remote Honeymoon getaway in the Mtn look at Muggins Gulch Inn
http://www.colorado-bnb.com/muginn/
near Breckenridge but on 400 acres. This will get you both "remote" and close to town, hard to beat!

Skip Colorado Springs and Royal gorge. Yuck!!! IMHO

gb

I agree skip Colorado Springs and Royal Gorge for a romantic getaway. Colorado is a large state so there really isn't a central location to do all that you mentioned. Good rafting will be slim this year because there won't be much snowmelt. The best bet for rafting this summer is likely to be the southwest near Durango area because they tend to get a little more summer rain. From the needs you described, you might to some research on the Estes Park area (2hours from Denver,or the Glenwood Springs area (3 hours from Denver). Maybe spend two-three days in Denver, and two-three days in the mountains.

hens4th

We like Grand Lake (western entrance to RMNP). For mountain scenery, the park itself is incomparable, and GL is much less congested/crowded than Estes Park. It's a great little town w/plenty of activities/services, and sits on a georgous lake. We stayed at a place called Lemmon Lodge, which is a "colony" of cabins fronting both the lake and a rushing mountain stream.

Paige

Question for Hens4th about the Grand Lake area. Is there a website for Grand Lake and the Lemmon Lodge? What type of accomodations are these. In the past we have spent our summer week in the Mountains in the Vail/Beaver Creek area or Crested Butte. Considering Grand Lake for this summer. Like to hike and relax in the beauty of the mountains but also want plenty of restaurants to choose from.

hens4th

Paige - sorry, don't know about websites - can only recommend doing a search. I CAN elaborate on the town and lodge, though: downtown Grand Lake is about 4 blocks long, w/old-fashioned, western-style board sidewalks all along which gives it a unique flavor. Downtown is only 1 block off the (awesomely beautiful) lake. Plenty of restaurants/bars/stores there, but no "gourmet" types; however, we ate at several places and never got a bad meal. (A note: grocery prices were HIGH - we drive there, and decided next trip we'd pack in more of our own groceries (frozen meat) for our cooking). Even at the heighth of tourist season (we've been there both in July and August) we didn't have a problem finding parking right in front of the downtown establishments.

Lemmon Lodge is only 1 block from downtown, and also from the town beach - an easy walk. It's a group of 15-20 cabins/lodges, some small, some large, some new, some old, all different, kind of close together, though. We saw two of them - reserved a less expensive one that was perfectly fine: rustic but comfortable, a short walk (1 min.) to the lake/ or streamfront (therefore no view off the front porch). We ended up spending more to move to a lakefront A-frame w/glass front - loved it. And there were several brand-new big "log" lodges fronting the stream - could imagine staying in one of them and falling to sleep listening to the water rushing over the rocks right out the door.....

Long-winded, aren't I? In short, we loved GL as a less-crowded base to see RMNP.