I was quite determined not to spend my days in Denver languishing in the hotel, so I caught the hotel shuttle to the airport and then a bus from the airport to downtown Denver. Unfortunately, there is only one bus an hour between Denver Airport and downtown Denver, so this is necessarily a long process. However, it is ten times cheaper than any other possible way - this is no exaggeration. A taxi from my hotel into the city would probably have cost more than $50. The hotel shuttle to the airport was free, and the Senior Citizen fare on the bus into the city is $5.50.
The journey into the city normally takes 50 minutes or so, but the first time I did it there had been an accident and a huge truck was lying upside down with its wheels in the air on one of the many intersecting roads. There were police cars everywhere, roads closed off and stationary traffic. So my first trip in to the city took a long time.
I had only been able to glean rather rudimentary information from the Internet about the city of Denver, as most places assume you will be driving there rather than walking, but as far as I could see, from bus and city maps, my bus stopped at a place called Market Street Station, and this seemed to be adjacent to what looked like an interesting pedestrianised street referred to as 16th Street Mall. There was a tourist information office on this street, as well as a free bus service up and down it, and the Denver Art Gallery seemed to be not far from one end of it, so I thought I might start there.
Market Street Station is at the top end of the 16th Street Mall. I started walking down the Mall, rather than catching the bus, as I wanted to look in any shops and I wasn't sure exactly where the tourist office was. Actually, the street seemed to have relatively few shops, but an awful lot of cafés and restaurants, and was extremely long - more than a mile I think. Eventually I found the tourist office and was able to get a map of the city and directions to the Art Gallery, which was still quite a walk away.
A little past the end of the street, I found the state Capitol building.
The museum district is adjacent to this civic area, but, once I had oriented myself correctly, I found I had to walk back some distance.
The entrance to the museum district is quite imposing.
This is taken from part of the way into the museum district, looking back towards the buildings of downtown Denver.
The walkway is lined with statues
This one is called 'on the War Trail', and opposite it is 'Bronco Buster'.
This latter one was hard to photograph, because there was a family of three boys having their photos taken in front of it, and they told me that the model had been their great grandfather!
By this time it was quite late in the day, I had already walked a considerable distance, and I didn't think I could manage an Art Gallery visit as well. So I adjourned to a nearby Barnes and Nobel, who have a nice coffee shop, and then caught the free bus back up the street to pick up the airport bus at 4.30.
I bought my supper at the airport - there is an excellent Chinese style restaurant called Panda Express - but then I nearly froze to death waiting for the courtesy bus back to the hotel. It had suddenly turned into an unpleasantly cold evening, with a cutting wind.
The following day was even more unpleasantly cold, and the wind was so fierce that no planes were able to land at Denver Airport, so I thought it best to stay inside and keep warm. The Ary Gallery visit would just have to wait - and that would probably mean there would be no time for other museums, of which there are quite a few in Denver.
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