A Walking and Drinking Beer Tour of Denver -- the Mile High City



Denver brews more beer than any other city. Coors Brewery in nearby Golden is the largest single brewing site in the world and Denver’s annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest beer celebration on the planet with a staggering 2,400 different beers available for tasting. 

It is estimated that more than 200 different beers are brewed in Denver every single day, giving The Mile High City its claim as the “Napa Valley of Beer.”



After tea, beer is the second most popular beverage on the planet and there are hundreds of different ways of making it. On a beer walking tour of Denver, you have the opportunity to choose from dozens of different craft beers, offering a wide variety of styles and ingredients. 

With so many choices, where do you take your first sip?  Here are two easy beer walking tours visiting a selection of downtown breweries.  Both tours start from Denver’s oldest and largest brewpub – the Wynkoop. 

Tour 1, LoDo to LoHi

Wyknoop Brewing Company, www.wynkoop.com, 18^th and Wynkoop Streets

Colorado’s first brewpub opened in 1988 and was founded by a group of young urban pioneers that included John Hickenlooper, who went on to serve as Mayor of Denver for seven years and is currently the Governor of Colorado (the first former brewer to be elected as a state governor since Sam Adams in 1794).  Today, the Wynkoop is the center of LoDo – Denver’s hip historic district where century old warehouses have been turned into more than 90 bars, brewpubs, restaurants and cafes. 

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (center in tie)

The Wynkoop’s architecture is typical of the neighborhood with hardwood floors, exposed brick walls covered with artwork and big open windows.  The second floor of the huge pub has 22 pool tables, while there is a popular comedy club in the basement.   There are always more than a dozen craft beers on tap.  The flagship beer (available in cans) is Railyard Ale, a smooth amber with the malty flavor of an Oktoberfest lager.  For a true Colorado experience, try  Patty’s Chile Beer, a German style lager made with chiles and smoked Ancho peppers. 

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Walk west on Wynkoop two blocks to the 16^th Street Mall, then turn left and walk seven blocks to Curtis.

Rock Bottom Brewery, www.rockbottom.com 16^th & Curtis Streets.   Today, Rock Bottom Brewery is a major chain with 37 breweries that produce 700 different craft beers that have won 125 medals.  But their brewery in Denver is the “mother ship,” the first brewery of the chain when it opened in 1990.  Rock Bottom has one of the best locations on the 16^th Street Mall, Denver’s mile-long pedestrian promenade.  There are 41 outdoor patios along the Mall, but the one at Rock Bottom is the largest and one of the most popular.  On summer weekends, bands play and hundreds of people gather to sip a craft beer on the patio under twinkling lights, as horse-drawn carriages clatter by.  The interior of the massive bar is built around towering glass windows displaying the brewing equipment.  It can be noisy, crowded and fun as the bar brings in an attractive crowd of young downtown office workers.  For a quieter experience, head to the back bar, which has pool tables and a staff that is knowledgeable about craft beer.   Rock Bottom features the standard IPAs, Red Ale, White Ale, Dark Ale and a Winter Tartan Ale, as well as the always popular local beer, Molly’s Titanic Brown Ale. The brewmaster at each pub creates specials, so check what’s on the current beer list, and especially look for the hand-pulled cask conditioned ales in the back room.

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Catch the free Mall bus at the corner of 16^th and Curtis and take it north to the final stop at the Light Rail station.  Walk back to 16^th Street and over the Millennium Bridge (easily identifiable by the tall white mast).  Continue straight through the Riverfront development and across Commons Park to a second pedestrian bridge over the South Platte River.  On the other side of the bridge, walk one block to Platte Street and turn right.  Denver Beer Company is on far side of the street.

Denver Beer Company, www.denverbeerco.com, 1695 Platte Street

Although relatively new, the Denver Beer Company is already becoming one of the city’s favorite tap rooms -- a place that really captures the laid back feeling of the Mile High City.  Located in a former auto garage, on warm days the “walls” of the pub literally roll up, making the whole building open air.  There’s an outdoor patio with picnic tables next to a space where different food trucks park every day. 

The Denver Beer Company serves only delicious homemade pretzels and beer, but you’re welcome to bring your own food or purchase food at the rotating food trucks.  Dogs are welcome too, and it’s a rare day when there aren’t at least a half dozen pups at the bar or on the patio.  Owners Charlie and Patrick began as home brewers and are dedicated to making the finest and most inventive beers in the city.  There are usually a dozen small batch beers on tap that rotate regularly.  Check the chalk board to see what’s available.  If Graham Cracker Porter is on tap, make that your choice.  It’s been described as “a campfire in a glass with notes of vanilla, smoked cedar and mulling spices.”  This is a neighborhood bar where people stop in after a bike ride or a run.  Even Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is a fan.  He helped Patrick and Charlie make a pumpkin ale here to kick off Denver Beer Fest in 2012.

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Turn right from the pub and in a half block, head west over a third pedestrian bridge, which crosses I-25.  Immediately on the other side of the bridge is the next stop.

Ale House at Amato’s, www.alehousedenver.com, 2501 16^th Street

After crossing the bridge, you’ve entered LoHi, one of Denver’s newest and fastest growing neighborhoods.  Amato’s is a great introduction to this hip section of town.  While no beer is brewed here, the restaurant is owned jointly by Wynkoop and Breckenridge breweries and features 42 craft beers on tap, including several rare and hard to find Colorado microbrews.  The staff is beer savy and will work with you to find the perfect selection, whether it’s light, hoppy, malty or complex (and your beer, of course, will be poured into the appropriate style glass).  The entire roof of the bar is an open air beer garden with outdoor fireplaces and sweeping views of downtown Denver.  It’s especially pretty at twilight when the sun sets over the visible Rocky Mountains to the west. 

 

Want a break from beer?  There are 30 wines to choose from, including Monkeyshine red and white, available here on tap, exclusively from the local Infinite Monkey Theorem Winery.  Or take a different break and walk two blocks uphill on 16^th until you see a 30-foot high milk can.  This is the legendary Little Man, where they produce hand-made, small batch ice cream, created with some of the finest local ingredients.  Relax with a triple scoop in their outdoor ice cream garden.  For those poor souls who have trouble with milk?  They sell a Lactaid pill for 50 cents!DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP: Exiting Amato’s, turn left and walk four blocks northeast along Central Street.

Prost Brewing, www.prostbrewing.com, 2540 19^th Street

As you would suspect, with a name like Prost, this new brewery specializes in traditional German beers… and they do everything traditionally, from serving the beer in appropriate German beer glasses to making it in authentic 72.5 barrel copper kettles from Germany.   The kettles were made in 1963 and used until two years ago by a 350-year old brewery in Germany. 

When that brewery went out of business, the kettles were purchased and lovingly shipped to Denver, where they continue to make Weißbier - a Bavarian Hefeweizen, Altfränkisches Dunkel Bier - a dark amber lager, and Marzen - an Oktoberfest brew.  The flagship beer is Prost Pils, a crisp, pale and well hopped, gold colored brew capped with a dense white collar of foam.  It’s served in a tapered glass with a gold rim that will have you crying, “Prost!”  The Prost beer hall is decorated with authentic antique German beer signs and blue and white check Oktoberfest bunting and is filled with long communal tables.  Have a liter of beer, bite into an authentic German pretzel, and meet new friends as this LoHi neighborhood tap room.

DIRECTIONS:  Return to the Light Rail station the same way you came.  From here, you can catch the free shuttle to anywhere on the 16^th Street Mall.

Tour 2:  LoDo to RiNo

Wynkoop Brewing Company (see Tour 1).

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Exiting the bar, turn left, walk a 100 feet to Wynkoop Street and turn right.  Proceed one block to 20^th Street.

Denver Chop House, www.denverchophouse.com, 1735 19^th Street

Coors Field from LoDo's Bar & Grill

Built in an old brick Union Pacific railroad station, this is Denver’s most upscale brewery and one of the city’s top sports bars.  The Denver Avalanche team celebrated their Stanley Cup victory here; so did the Denver Bronocs after their Super Bowl win.  It has a clubby, dark wood feel with booths, old railroad photos and a long wood bar.  If you want to see Denver sports heroes relaxing, this is a good bet. 

There are usually up to 10 craft beers on tap.  While long on history and atmosphere, the Chop House is short on creative names for their beers, going with “Red Ale, “Pale Ale,” “Wheat beer,” etc.  But try the Wild Turkey Barrel Conditioned Stout, or any of their specials.   If you’re dreaming of a great Colorado steak and craft beer, this is your place.  There’s always a good crowd at the lively bar area.  If you’re flying out of Denver, there’s also a Denver Chop House with the same craft beers at Denver International Airport.

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Walk south on 19^th Street two blocks to Blake and turn left.

Falling Rock Tap House, www.fallingrocktaphouse.com/ , 1919 Blake

This is one of the great beer bars in America with 75 craft beers on tap, 130 beers in bottles, and a collection of 2,200 different beer bottles decorating the walls (most of which were drunk by owner and local beer legend Chris Black).  While no beers are brewed here, this is the place to talk craft beer. 

During the Great American Beer Festival, this is ground central for every top brewer in the nation. There’s a large outdoor patio that is popular when the Colorado Rockies are playing in nearby Coors Field, but the primary reason to visit is beer.  The bartenders are beer-knowledgeable and will help you find a good choice. The walls are decorated with historic beer signs and bottles.  Falling Rock is often crowded, noisy and fun and is one of the most popular of the 90 bars to be found in LoDo.

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Continue down Blake three blocks.

Breckenridge Colorado Craft, www.breckbrew.com/food/breckenridge-colorado-craft, 2200 Blake Street. 

Opened in 1992, this is one of Denver’s first brewpubs and features 32 American craft beers, including all those of Breckendridge Brewery as well as many other Colorado specialty beers, including some rare and hard to find.  There’s a large menu of American favorites and the staff knows their beer.  Breckenridge Brewery has been one of Colorado’s success stories.  Originally, Breck opened as the state’s third craft brewer in 1990 on Main Street in the ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado.  Today, there are five restaurants/pubs and you can purchase Breckenridge beers in 32 states.  This large, friendly and ideally situated pub (it’s across the street from Coors Field) was a LoDo institution before there was a LoDo (it opened before the ballpark did in 1995, in what was then considered the hinterlands of downtown).  Today, it is surrounded by bars and restaurants, but with its exposed brick walls and wood floors, Breckenridge Colorado Craft offers an essential Denver experience and the perfect stop before or after a Colorado Rockies game.

DIRECTIONS TO NEXT STOP:  Head south on 22^nd Street for three blocks to 2201 Arapahoe Street.

Great Divide, www.greatdivide.com, 2201Arapahoe

Brian Dunn started Great Divide in 1994, working as the brewery’s only employee, brewing, bottling and selling the beer himself.  Today, it has expanded to 45 employees and is one of the most popular of Colorado’s craft beers, having won 15 medals at the Great American Beer Festival.  The brewery is located here, in an old brick dairy, as is the always crowded Tap Room, open Tues.-Sunday.  While they don’t serve food in the Tap Room, you can usually find some of the city’s best food trucks parked outside.  And then there’s the beer.  There are 17 beers on tap, available in samplers and served by people who know and love Great Divide beer.  Tours of the brewery are available at 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm Monday thru Friday. Saturday and Sunday tours take place between the hours of 2:30 and 5:00 pm, running regularly every 30 to 45 minutes.  No reservations are required.  Great Divide prides itself on exciting beer styles and an ever changing array of brews. Their signature beer is the one that boldly takes on the name of America’s greatest beer city – a Denver Pale Ale (DPA, as it is known to locals). 

DIRECTIONS TO LAST STOP:   Return down 22^nd for three blocks to Blake, turn right and walk two blocks to 24^th and Blake.

River North Brewery, www.rivernorthbrewery.com, 2401 Blake

Matt Hess, founder

Located at the tip of the River North neighborhood (RiNo for short), this is typical of the small breweries that are springing up all over Denver.  The tiny taproom has big windows and serves as a neighborhood pub, attacting locals mixed with beer aficionados from throughout the region.  No food is served, but restaurants and food trucks are nearby.  River North specializes in brewing Belgian-style ales and American style ales with a Belgian twist.  But the truth, as brewer Matt Hess admits, is they just brew the type of beer they like to drink. 

Whether you like Saison or a Belgian-style triple IPA, stop in and consult the chalk board to see what’s on tap.  You can also see the beer being made through windows overlooking the brewery.  Likely as not, the person pouring your beer could be one of the brewers, who will love talking to you about what’s fresh as he pours you a tray of samplers.  River North… like other small Denver brewers Renegade, Black Shirt, Hogshead, Del Norte, Strange, Crooked Stave and Golden City…offer an intimate tap room tasting experience that show why Denver is such a fascinating beer town.  Don’t be surprised to see the majority of the patrons ordering trays of four ounce samplers.  Always talk to the bartender about different styles of beers, and have them match a sample to your preference. 

For more information on beer and everything else in Denver:  www.visitdenver.com



Indianapolis is the Most Walkable -- and Drinkable -- City in the Midwest

Soldier & Sailor Monument

A lot of people were surprised when “Indiana-no-place,” was selected to host 2012 Super Bowl XLVI.   They were even more surprised when Indy hit it out of the ballpark, staging one of the best Super Bowls and greatest parties the world has known.  More than a million people celebrated on the streets of Indy, while the Super Bowl was watched by 111 million others across the U.S. - the largest audience in television history.

Well, no one should have been surprised.  The year before, Indiana swept the Great American Beer Festival, winning more prestigious beer medals than any other state.  Good beer makes anything possible.  But people who have never been to Indianapolis and assume it is just another dying, dull, rust and corn-belt Midwest city could not be more mistaken.  Indy is amazing, and getting better by the day. 

Indy’s very walkable downtown is green (with 350 acres of parks, rivers, tree-lined boulevards and canals); European (with impressive monuments and murals); trendy (with 300 restaurants and a national farm-to-table reputation); and artistic (with a unique pedestrian path that stretches across a state park, from a downtown zoo past world class history, art, and sports museums). 

And did I mention beer?  Locals Sun King and Upland lead a team of 64 Indiana breweries, and craft beer is supported by nearly every restaurant and bar in town.  It is the cleanest city you will ever see, with horizon-to-horizon vistas of green trees, while armadas of white clouds float overhead in majestic Midwestern corn-blue skies. 

Best of all are the people.  Eventually, Indy will be filled with hipster transplants and become the new Austin, Seattle, Portland or Denver, but right now Indy is home-base to a young, unpretentious crowd of locals who make no secret of the fact that they like good food (and lots of it), enjoy live music, partying, beer and fun.  Today, bikers and joggers are few and far between, but an enlightened city leadership is building miles of new bike trails (including the most innovative urban bike path in the nation).  With a new bike sharing program coming, Indy will soon lead the Midwest for their appreciation of the outdoors, health and recreation. 

City Layout

The downtown was designed in 1820 by Alexander Ralston, an assistant to Pierre L’Enfant, the19^th Century “genius” who brought us endless traffic congestion and confusion in Washington D.C.   Indy uses the same city plan, a center circle with spokes of streets that radiate out, criss-crossing with traditional north-south streets, making the downtown area hopelessly confusing to a first time visitor.  But no worries.  It’s small enough, there are ample maps and signage everywhere, and once you learn a few high landmarks that poke up into the sky along the horizon, you can get anywhere. 

Indy is not Paris, and there are plenty of boring blocks for every great one.  But it is a wonderful city to stretch your legs, and from any downtown hotel you can soon be strolling beside a canal, river, park or monument.   Some things to do:

Bike The Indianapolis Cultural Trail   

This brand new, $63 million, 8-mile, circular bike trail links every major downtown attraction and neighborhood and is a great way to see the city.  Indy was planned in the 1800s with streets wide enough to turn a horse-drawn wagon.  In the 20^th Century, those wide streets were converted to one-way traffic, making it even easier to get out of town.  The result was that everyone fled to live in the suburbs and downtown Indy was a ghost town after five.  Today, enlightened city fathers have taken back one full lane of major downtown streets and turned them into bike paths.  Creative signage and patterns on the path make the Cultural Bike Path easy to follow.  Since the city is as flat as a cornfield, it’s easy to zip around by bike.  A bike share program is coming soon, but until then, there are convenient bike rentals at the City Market, an old 1821 gem of a brick warehouse.  With a huge open hall, iron railings along the second floor and lit by skylights, City Market is filled with stalls selling a variety of food and is a favorite lunch spot for locals.  There’s an excellent tap room on the second floor with 20 local beers; ask for a free Indiana Beer Passport.  It’s a guide to the state’s breweries and beers with room to add your own tasting notes.

City Market

See the Monuments 

Young farm boys from Indiana have been cannon fodder for America since the Civil War, volunteering – and dying – in astonishing numbers.   Indiana’s casualty rate in war is double the national average.  Some 75% of the Indiana men eligible for the army volunteered to fight in the Civil War, the second highest per capita rate of any state in the country.  

In tribute to these men, Indy has built more war monuments that any other city, and is second only to Washington DC in the total number of war memorials.   Unlike many decaying city war memorials, the ones in Indy are huge, impressive, and kept in immaculate condition.  The museums that go with them are a tad hokey and underfed, but the monuments are something else.  Leading is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a 284-foot tower that is the heart of the city, from which all spokes lead out.  You can climb 330 steps to the top or take a reasonably priced elevator for $2.  Everything about the monument is colossal.   This monument, nearly as high as the Statue of Liberty, honors soldiers of the Civil War and Spanish American War.  You can walk around its huge statues of soldiers and civilians or sit by its fountains many times and see something new each visit.  The Civil War museum in the basement could use some love, but buffs will enjoy it.

The Indiana War Memorial is a few blocks away and is a big, solid chunk of a memorial, with a basement military museum covering all wars from the Revolution on.  Indy’s truly horrifying war museum is also here, honoring the USS Indianapolis, the WWII ship immortalized in Jaws.  The ship was on a secret mission to deliver parts for the atomic bomb when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine.  No one knew it had gone down and there was no attempt to rescue survivors.  More than 900 men went into the water in the dark of night with nothing but lifejackets.  Only 300 survived – many of those lost were eaten by swarms of sharks that surrounded the survivors and forced them into ever increasingly smaller circles.  If you have trouble visualizing the horror of that, the museum has paintings to help.

Eat and Drink Indy Style

People in Indy like to eat…and why not?  This area that has always appreciated farm-to-table, local restaurants having long traditions with local farms. Portions can be outrageous, particularly anything with pork (pork tenderloin sandwiches are the city’s signature dish).  Some classics not to miss: 



Rathskeller

The Rathskeller is a rambling, huge, authentic old German restaurant with a long beer hall lined with dead animal heads and an outdoor beer garden filled with live bands.  Their wienershictizel is as good as any in Germany, and the portion was the size of a deflated basketball.  Their pretzels are just as large and tasty.  When there’s a band, the outdoor bar is filled with hundreds of young people.

St. Elmo Steak House is where all the celebrities who were in town for the Super Bowl had dinner. It’s a dark wood, clubby, men’s steak house, with a maze of different rooms and floors. They’re all cozy and Old World, particularly the main bar and the upstairs bar.  St. Elmo is known for their spicy shrimp cocktail; if you can’t afford dinner, at least stop in for one of those.



St. Elmo's shrimp cocktail

Black Market is a gastro pub on the edge of downtown with a wonderful beer selection and a farm-to-table menu that changes regularly, depending on what’s fresh.  If there is perch on the menu, get it.  I’m not sure exactly what perch is (other than the most moist and delicious white fish I’ve ever eaten), but the room is hip and the beer list extensive, and you could transplant this restaurant to New York or San Francisco without missing a beat.

The Slippery Noodle Inn is Indiana’s oldest bar and a former hangout of gangster (and local hero) John Dillinger.  Dillinger allegedly shot holes in the back bar.  There are slugs in the bricks, and the bar staff will show them to you if you ask.  Although Dillinger was gunned down by the FBI in Chicago, he’s buried in Indy at the Crown Hill Cemetery. The Slippery Noodle is a downtown institution with live blues bands and a good late night stop.

Walk White River State Park

In 1834, Indy built the Central Canal to the White River with the hope that it would provide power and transportation to turn the young city into an industrial giant.  Fortunately, the canal silted up and was a complete failure.  Indy never became a manufacturing center like Detroit or Pittsburgh.   

Today, the canal has gone through a renaissance and is lined with pedestrian and bike paths.  It’s like the San Antonio Riverwalk, but without the bars and restaurants.  That’s too bad – maybe the bars will come someday, but it’s still a very pleasant walk, and the canal is connected to a beautiful 250-acre park that runs to the river.  Other trails wind along the White River with gorgeous skyline views in the background.  In this natural area, you can walk from city’s fine zoo to a minor-league baseball stadium or to a series of impressive museums. 

The zoo has a series of biomes that showcase everything from lions to dolphins.  It’s right downtown, which makes it unusual.  The Eiteljorg Museum is one of the nation’s finest museums of Native American and Western art.  It’s gorgeous, with big paintings by big name Western artists like Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Remington.  But while the paintings are big, the museum is just right -- small and manageable.

Next, door, the Indiana State Museum is a hodgepodge of natural and cultural history, but the big news is the Star Wars exhibit is coming here from May to September 2013, filled with costumes, artifacts and original models from the movies. 

Indiana Historical Society

There’s a NCAA Hall of Champions (for those who have forgiven the NCAA for the shameful way they treated Penn State) but for a truly bizarre experience, walk along the canal to the Indiana Historical Society.  The museum believes in the concept of living history and has hired actors to re-create scenes from the state’s past.  For their Prohibition exhibit, you enter a jail cell, where an attractive woman actor tells you she has just been arrested for “soliciting.”  Not that type of soliciting – she was trying to sell moonshine.  If role-playing with an attractive woman in a jail cell is your type of thing, the museum is a bargain at $6.50.  Hard to say what kids think of it, but you also encounter a policeman who takes your mug shot and a stern bible-pounding woman who will give you a hard time about drinking.  All in all, it was fun and I will never forget that Indiana did away with prohibition long before the U.S. government did. 

Visit a Museum

The Indianapolis Art Museum is a few miles from downtown, but worth the trip.  It’s one of the top 10 in the nation in terms of its collection, and it’s located on 100 acres of land that was formerly the estate of pharmaceutical king J.K. Lilly Jr.  That means there’s lots of money behind the museum, and it shows. There’s a bit of everything here, including an outdoor sculpture park, and lots of familiar paintings by big name artists.

Tour the Raceway

The Indy 500 is the biggest one-day sporting event in the world, drawing 400,000 people.  It’s a good thing/bad thing for Indy.  Certainly, if you like auto racing, this is the ultimate bucket list destination, and there’s plenty at the 2.5 mile track to see year-round including a racing hall of fame with many of the winning cars, expensive rides in race cars and pace cars around the track, and other tours and racing events.  However, if you have little interest in auto racing, the Indy 500 tends to overshadow everything else about this up and coming city, which has far more to offer than a racetrack.   It’s very easy to have an enjoyable weekend in Indy without ever going near anything to do with auto racing, except maybe having a beer or two with racing names.

IF YOU GO:   Most people will see Indy on a convention or sporting event.  They have an excellent set up with great hotels, restaurants and attractions all within walking distance.  It would also make a good add-on to a Kentucky Bourbon Trail trip.  Indy is two hours from Louisville and three hours from Lexington, so it makes a nice loop.  For info: . visitindy.com

  

Walking and Drinking Beer in Williamsburg

The Governor's Palace -- in early morning you'll see baby and horse carraiges.

One of the greatest walks in America is an early morning stroll down the Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, Virginia.  By noon, DOG Street (as the locals call it) will be swarming with tourists and shoppers, but if you come early in the day, you can have this time portal to Colonial Virginia all to yourself. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it the most historic avenue in America. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson knew the street well, and would feel right at home today, walking along its brick sidewalks past familiar white taverns with swinging pub signs. 

 

Popular Chowding's Tavern on DOG Street

DOG Street stretches for a mile, from the first Capitol building in Virginia built in 1701 to the College of William and Mary, the second oldest college in the U.S. after Harvard. Along the way, there are 88 buildings that are more than 250 years old.  Another 400 buildings have been re-constructed to their original colonial designs, creating a full-scale city that is frozen in time.  In Williamsburg, it is always the 1770s, a period when this was the capital of Virginia and the wealthiest and most beautiful British outpost in the New World.

 

 

But make no mistake, Williamsburg is not a fenced off historic theme park.  This is a living and working town.  Cars are not allowed in the historic center, where all the streets are dirt, but many normal residents live in the historic zone and anyone is free to walk around the village any time they like.  On your early morning stroll you might share the street with local joggers and moms pushing babies or you might have to pause to let a horse-drawn carriage pass by.  If a backyard garden looks inviting, push open the white picket fence gate and walk on in.  None of the streets or gardens is off limits, and you are free to wander anywhere you like.

 

More than 90 artisans and living history educators work in the town as craftsman --  silversmiths, printers, cabinetmakers, bakers, bricklayers and shopkeepers.   They make Williamsburg the largest living history museum on earth.  On your early morning walk you’ll encounter many of these 18^th century commuters heading to work -- women in long skirts and straw hats, or gentlemen in knee breeches and stockings, who tip their tri-corner hat and offer a pleasant, “Good day to you sir.”

Feeling hungry?  Stop by the bakery behind the Raleigh Tavern for a fresh gingerbread snap and a cup of tea.  But, if you talk to the shopkeeper, you’ll soon learn, tea in 1770s Williamsburg comes with a price.  While the streets and gardens appear to be peaceful, Williamsburg in 1770 is actually sitting on a powder keg -- a town of diverse people, struggling to get along.  Revolution is in the air.  The atmosphere in Williamsburg makes today’s red and blue states seem quite calm.  People are outraged at a new tax on tea.  While the Royal Governor lives in an opulent palace at one end of the street, half of the town’s 5,000 residents are enslaved African Americans living in poverty.  As you walk along, you will share the brick sidewalks with tradesmen, Native Americans, indentured servants, farmers, soldiers, slaves, rebels and loyalists…all with different stories they are eager to tell you. 

 

Williamsburg, of course, is not an actual re-creation of what an 18^th Century town looked like.  In 1770, Williamsburg had no trees, the streets were muddy and filthy, and it’s hard to imagine the smells of people who rarely bathed or changed clothes.  If you want to see the 18^th Century, travel to India.  But neither is this a Disney-like theme park.  Rather than a re-creation, Williamsburg is more a celebration of 18^th Century ideas and craftsmanship, especially those ideas that led to radical new views of freedom and liberty.   And they serve beer.... at four of the most beautiful pubs and taverns you can imagine.

Even the outhouses are pretty in Williamsburg.

Many people know Williamsburg from visits there when they were growing up, but it is definitely worth a repeat visit as an adult.

 

How Williamsburg Was Frozen in Time

 

From 1699 to 1780, Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia and one of the most important cities in all the 13 original colonies.  But at the height of the Revolutionary War, fearing a British invasion, the capital was moved to a more defensible and central location in Richmond.  This made Williamsburg a backwater, and for the next 150 years, it reverted to a sleepy college town of little importance. 

 

As modernization crept in, a local minister, the Rev. W.A.R. Goodwin, began to fear that historic buildings once known to Washington and Jefferson would be torn down in the name of progress. So in 1926, he convinced John D. Rockefeller Jr., one of the richest men in the world, that Williamsburg was worth saving.  Rockefeller embraced the project, and over the next 30 years, he literally purchased much of the town and hired a team of architects, archeologists and historians to preserve, restore and rebuild Williamsburg to its colonial glory.

 

Today, the 301-acre colonial district is part museum and part living city.  The historic center is operated by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.  Although you can walk around the town for free, you need to purchase a pass from the Foundation to enter the buildings and participate in many of the programs.

  

The pass allows you to enter 225 period rooms, from the grand Governor's Palace, the most elegant abode in the colonies, to the Public Goal, where 15 members of Blackbeard's pirate crew were once jailed.  You can tour the Capitol, where in 1776 Virginia delegates voted for independence from England two months before the other 12 colonies did so in Philadelphia, or you can enter a colonial hospital and talk to a doctor to hear about the latest medical practices, like putting blood-sucking leeches on a patient to “bleed” them back to good health.

The Governor's Palace.

In the buildings, and in three world-class museums, there are more than 60,000 colonial items to view, including famous period paintings, clothing, furniture, and weapons. 

 

But most important, the pass allows you to interact with the town’s craftsmen, who are busy about their daily life in shops, the same way they would have been 250 years ago.  Printers are setting type to produce a newspaper, soldiers are standing guard at the Magazine, silversmiths are hammering out jewelry, while gunsmiths work on decorating their long rifles. 

 

In the shops along DOG Street, you will meet craftsmen who make everything from bricks and barrels to hats and wigs, the same way they did centuries ago.  And you’ll hear about their troubles and the fear that the colonies are about to go to war with England.

 

But Williamsburg is a living city too.  With or without the pass, you can wander the pretty streets and back alleys or stroll through the 26 elaborate gardens overflowing with flowers, all authentically researched to have been in the colonies in 1770.    It’s also free to poke around the dozens of shops in town selling some tourist stuff, but an amazing amount of authentic colonial items, from brass candlesticks to birdhouses, 18th Century china to silver rings and bracelets. 

 And then there are the taverns. Colonial Williamsburg operates four historic taverns, each with its own character.  Chowning’s Tavern opened in 1766 and served a lower clientele than the other taverns, so today it features hearty sandwiches, Brunswick stew, oysters, clams and chicken pot pie.  Sit in their outdoor beer garden and sip a local Loose Cannon ale, or dine indoors by candlelight and afterwards enjoy “gambols,” colonial games that includes singing, music and games of chance and skill. 

 

At the other end of town is Christiana Campbell’s Tavern, George Washington’s favorite.  He dined here 10 times in a two-month period.  It’s a grand Old World setting, with wooden floors and tables, dining by flickering candlelight with roving balladeers, and a menu of Southern seafood, made from scratch to 18^th Century recipes.

An area of modern shops and restaurants called Market Square (made to look old, of course) sits in the middle of DOG Street and offers more conventional dining.  The cheese shop has hundreds of cheeses and wine and drinks and is a good place to stock up.

But the best advice is go when no one else is going.  Go in off or shoulder seasons, be there early in the morning, at twilight or even in the dark (the streets are lit by mini-torches in winter and it’s a great thing to see).  It’s great before Christmas when all the homes are decorated with colonial bunting and wreathes. 

 

If you go:    For information, www.colonialwilliamsburg.com.   It’s most enjoyable to stay right in the town in one of the hotels operated by Colonial Williamsburg, which can be expensive, or at one of the few cheaper ones that are within walking distance.  There’s free two hour parking in town, but they do ticket. You can park free at the Colonial Williamsburg main entrance, about a half mile walk away.  There’s free buses, but only during tourist hours.    If you arrive late in the afternoon, you don’t need the pass for that day, but for a full day or two visit, definitely purchase the pass for at least one day.  Get the daily schedule – there’s music, political demonstrations, fife and drum and all sorts of activities.  I went to an auction that was quite amusing. 

 

Walking and Drinking Beer on a Las Vegas Showgirl Backstage Tour

Jubilee backstage tours are led by showgirls three days a week.

There’s no greater icon for Las Vegas than a statuesque showgirl, sparkling with jewels, her head covered with ostrich plumes, her outstretched arms shimmering with diamond cuffs as she stands motionless and nude, a celebration of the beauty of the female form.

But times change.

Where once every casino on the Strip had an elaborate showgirl production, today it is all Cirque du Soleil, Broadway musicals, Celine and Donny & Marie.  When the Folies Bergere  closed in 2008 after a run of 49.5 years, that left Glitter Gulch with just one last showgirl production.

Ah, but what a production it is.  Jubilee! is pure Vegas – the longest running show in town, and second longest in the world.  For 31 years, this $50 million, over-the-top spectacle of 85 dancers wearing 1,000 different costumes has exploded on a stage half the size of an American football field.  Literally exploded.  Each show uses five pounds of explosives and 1,000 pounds of dry ice.

But no special effect can top the showgirls – the 60 beauties who wear 10,000 pounds of rhinestones, 8,000 miles of sequins, 4,000 pounds of feathers…and not much else.

One of the great ways to enjoy the show is on a backstage tour, held three days a week.  Led by one of the showgirls, the tour takes you into their dressing rooms and behind the show’s staggering 75 different curtains and backdrops to see what it takes to put on this swirling sea of color.

Laura the tour guide

Our tour guide, Laura, is a former ballet dancer who has been with Jubilee! for five years.  She’s perky, tall and model-thin and joins the tour wearing a g-string, fishnet stockings and a short little sparkling black jacket and bowler hat.   While she’s certainly the most glamorous thing in our group of twenty, older, sweating and overweight tourists, we soon learn there is really very little glamour in being a showgirl.

Jubilee! is performed twice a night, six days a week, 52 weeks a year.  And there is only one cast with no understudies.  That means each dancer must perform every show. When dancers are injured, sick or on vacation, the other cast members must fill in.  Laura is a “swing” dancer, so for certain production numbers, she has to know the moves and routines of all the other hoofers so she can fill in for anyone missing. This requires her to memorize 45 different dance routines and costume changes and be able to perform any one of them at the drop of a hat.

Into the Dressing Rooms

After standing on the main stage to see the immense size of it, the tour group descends two stories below to the cramped dressing rooms.  Here we learn that the spectacle you see on stage is dwarfed by the excitement that goes on behind the curtain.  Laura has 11 costume changes in the show.  Each change requires that she go up and down two flights of stairs in three inch heels, often wearing a 20 pound costume with a headdress that can stick out three-feet on each side, all the while avoiding all the other 85 dancers (and the 75 stage hands pulling curtains and pushing sets).  She does 1,500 stairs a night.  “There’s no need for the dancers to work out or exercise,” she says.  “We get all the exercise we need just being in the show.”

There are 65 dancersin the show, 40 of them are nude dancers.

It’s hard to imagine the chaos that goes on in these cramped quarters.  Some of the headdresses are so huge that they are held up by pulleys twenty feet in the air and lowered on to the girl’s head just before going on stage.  The headdresses alone can weigh 25 pounds and feature hundreds of feathers from ostrich, pheasant, and even vultures – all individually attached to a football-like helmet designed to fit snugly on a showgirl’s head.  There are no chinstraps. 
It takes balance and incredible strength to hold the headdress up, move gracefully across stage, avoid hitting the other girls, and get back to the dressing room, where you have three minutes to change and do it all over again.

Designed by Bob Mackie and Pete Menafee, the costumes are all different, and many of them are 30 years old.  They are valued at up to $50,000 apiece. 

 Keeping the costumes in shape requires three costume shops, where a team of specialists are constantly sewing, wiring, and cleaning.  As you walk through the shops filled with feathers and sequins, the most memorable thing is that the mirrors are bedecked with personal photos, just like any office desk in the world.  “This is where we spend most of our lives, and we’re like a family,” Laura says.  Dancers must be 18, but there is no older age limit and the oldest male dancer was 51 and a grandfather.  “As long as you look good and feel good wearing a g-string, you’re in,” Laura says. 

To stand out on such a huge stage requires real presence.  Women dancers must be at least 5 feet 8 inches tall for the “short” end of the line, and 5 feet 10 inches for the “tall” end.  The 25 males dancers have to be 6 feet tall.

The History of Nude Dancing in Las Vegas

When Las Vegas introduced showgirls in 1959, the law was that for them to be nude, they could not move.  That led to the iconic image of showgirls just standing still.  Today, that has loosened up and all of the showgirls are dancers and athletes.  Forty of them in Jubilee! are topless; the other covered dancers, of which Laura is one, are called “Bluebells,” after a Miss Blue Bell, one of the early dressers.  But it is the nude dancers that steal the show, and consequently they make more money, are the featured dancers, and have the best costumes. 
“When I saw the costumes, I knew I had to try them,” Laura says, so she “swings” or fills-in for the nude dancers when required.  She holds up a bra that is little more than a ribbon outline of sparking diamonds, the key pieces missing.  “It doesn’t look like much, but I’d feel naked without it!” she laughs.

In addition to the dressing rooms, the backstage tour visits some of the elaborate sets that are stored below stage and whisked up by 11 elevators.  The show’s set pieces include the sinking of the Titanic, a Samson and Delilah number in which a gigantic temple crashes to the ground, and homage to Hollywood. 

Two floors underground, you can see the 30-foot model of the Titanic, or the ship’s enormous boiler rooms, or the huge metal cages, where Laura, as a slave girl, dances in the Samson number.   Some 100,000 pounds of sets are moved up and down to the stage in seconds – and all by hand.  Whereas modern shows like Phantom of the Opera are computer and machine controlled, the “Old School” Jubilee! production is done by hand with 75 stage hands pulling ropes, shoving props, and placing explosives by hand.

Each girl must do their own makeup – and to be visible on a huge stage, the makeup is heavy.  Since their own hair is not part of the show, the girls wrap their heads in a pantyhose cap so they can easily slip into headdresses and wigs. The pantyhose cap may not be the most glamorous look  behind the stage, but once they get into their costumes, dance past the curtain, and shimmer into the spotlight – you are seeing some of the hardest working, most athletic, talented and beautiful dancers in the business.

If you go:    Jubilee! is a unique and wildly expensive show to produce.  When it closes, the world will never see its likes again, so see it soon. The backstage tours are available Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 11 a.m.; cost is $17 per person ($12 if you also purchase a Jubilee! show ticket).  www.ballyslasvegas.com, 702-967-4938.

Walking and Drinking Beer in Las Vegas

Las Vegas has the most liberal drinking laws in the world.  You can drink anywhere, any time. Buy a beer at a liquor store (there's more than a dozen on the strip) and you can walk around drinking from the glass bottle, and take your beer into a casino or anywhere you like.  The ABC Store (direct from Hawaii) has a good selection of single beers.  There are deals along the strip for $1.99 Bud Lights and other cheap beers and for frozen drinks, but to get a craft beer requires a search and will run you $7 to $8.  Las Vegas is not cheap anymore.  There's a craft beer booth on the second level of New York casino with 24 beers; the New York casino also has a decent but crowded Irish pub down below.

Venice has fountains and gondolas

To walk the main part of the Strip from Luxor to Wynn is about four miles, but it will seem like 20 with the craziness of the people, the lights, noise, non-stop traffic and shows.  Still, it's one of the most fascinating walks in the world.  All of the large, free shows that begin at dusk are worth seeing.  In order of spectacle they provide, the best are:  The Pirate Ship battle at Treasure Island, the volcano at Mirage, the gondolas floating by at Venice (the inside shopping center is worth a look), the plaza at Ceaser's Palace, and the dancing fountains at Bellagio. 

It was 108 degrees the day I was there (in early June), but it was not as frightfully hot as it would seem.  There's plenty of casinos to duck into, there's usually shade, and it is a dry desert heat.  There is a monorail, but it is not located on the strip, so it requires walking the lenght of the casino to find a stop, and the casinos are designed so there is no straight line through them. 

Ceaser's Palace has cool fountains -- when it's 108 degrees.

A better public transportation is the Deuce bus, which runs up and down the Strip.  It's $5 for a two hour period or better, pay the $7 for a 24-hour pass.  The Deuce is a good way to get from the Strip to the Fremont Street Experice, a section of Old Las Vegas that now has zipliners racing overhead, a canapony of several million lights, free bands, and the biggest crowds in town.  Fremont Street is too far to walk from the Strip, but worth the journey -- at least once -- just to experience its craziness.  Get on the Deuce, grab a seat on the upper deck (the bus is air conditioned, new and very cool), and it's a great (but slow) ride up the Strip to Fremont Street.

Fremont Street Experience

Aria Resort & Casino

Where to stay:   The new “showgirl” of the Las Vegas Strip is Aria Resort & Casino, a 4,000-room, AAA Five Diamond beauty that opened in 2009.  It’s fun to see an “Old School” show like Jubilee!, but you want to stay in the 21^st Century – and this place is it.  All of the guestrooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows and the most technological advanced rooms in Las Vegas.  One “Good Night” turns off the lights, shuts the curtains, and turns on the privacy notification.  The lobby and public areas mix water, wood and stone, including a relaxing 270-foot long waterfall as you enter.  The curvilinear steel and glass towers were designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli (architects of some of the most monumental buildings in the world including the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Canary Wharf Tower in London and New York’s World Financial Center).  This resort -- and the attached Crystals shopping center and three outdoor pools – are a whole new contemporary look for Las Vegas, but in keeping with the same elegant shapes and classic beauty of the city’s famous showgirls.   www.arialasvegas.com