Central City, Georgetown and a few other Rocky Mountain sites on an easy drive from Denver

June 20, 2011 - As I "mock up" this entry, I am comfortable it will not be a "muck up" but not quite so fresh as if I had written it just after a ride into a few Rocky Mtn sites close to Denver, on Weds., May 25. Just to be sure, this is a WORK in progress (!!) - no pictures, no finality yet, but with it being more important for me to almost literally get points on the board....

 

For me as a city-lover, the highlight of an easy day trip, courtesy of my Colorado brother, was seeing what were in a sense two very urban places in their heyday - the old mining boomtowns of Central City and Georgetown.

 

What struck me the most on a comparative basis was a kind of topographical inversion between them.  Central City, which my Denver-area brother and I saw first, had an engaging and somewhat hilly landscape/streetscape in its  center after which the flatness of central Georgetown seemed unexciting, but the mountains around Central City were not as high or snowy as those around Georgetown, so a case of hilly and lower and flat and higher, so to speak.

 

Being a lover of "hilltowns" like Pittsburgh, I have a fonder month-old memory of Central City, but both towns are absolutely worth visiting! [And only last night, a Denver friend told me about Leadville - noting it is largely ungentrified, about 2 thousand feet higher than Central City, etc.!]

 

It was fun to ascend the main street of Central City, and after we parked in a lot used partly by the Opera Company - a legacy of incredible mining wealth housed in the 18(78?) Opera House, my brother and I enjoyed a few minutes of listening in on a male chorus for "Carmen"..... [to be continued and modified....]