Aspen, the famous ski resort located 340 km west of Denver, was an early western mining camp before it became the very hip ski destination it is today, along with Vail, Breckenridge and Telluride.

Nicknamed "The Mile High City" because of its altitude, Denver, the capital, pairs the sophistication of an eastern city with a more laid-back western attitude.

Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs, 111 km south of Denver, is in the neighborhood of Pike National Forest. Pike's Peak (4250 m) towers over the city. A winding road leads to the summit.  Pikes Peak offers a breathtaking panorama for those who make the trip up. It was on its heights that the poet  Katharine Lee Bates was inspired to write "America the Beautiful". To get to the top, you can take the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, the highest cog railway in the world, created in 1889. The site owes its name to Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, the first to see what he called the "Great Peak," and who, after failing to scale it, declared that no man would ever be able to climb these mountains. History would prove him wrong, when 14 years later, James Edwin was the first, although not the last, to acccomplish the feat.

Just to the south is the Broadmoor Hotel complex, a recreation center on the slopes of Cheyenne Mountain. From Broadmoor, a cog train will take you to an exceptional zoo.

From Colorado Springs you can discover one of the west's most remarkable canyons, the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River that is crossed by the highest suspension bridge in the world, at 1,053 feet above the river.

Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek is separated from Colorado Springs by 58 km of beautiful landscapes. Founded in 1891, this mining town became one of the most prosperous in the west and provided no less than 600 tons of gold during its years of operation. Although now a village once again, Cripple Creek boasted a population of almost 50,000 in the early 20th century. The veins are now exhausted and so those looking to make their fortunes turn to the casinos that have overtaken the town.

Don't miss: the Mollie Kathleen gold mine, 304 meters underground, which was one of the most active. It remained in operation until the 1960s. The mining towns of Cripple Creek and Victor offer visitors a unique experience: relive the era of the biggest gold strike in the world. Located on the southest side of Pikes Peak, these historic locations produced more than 21 million ounces of gold following their creation on April 5, 1891. The  Golden Loop Historic Parkway allows you to visit the places where the precious metal was extracted. Connecting Colorado Spring to Cripple Creek, the parkway is today an unpaved road with a panoramic view, used for jeep expeditions.

Durango
In the southwestern part of the state, Durango is the doorway to Mesa Verde National Park. Relive the romance of the Old West by taking a steam train across a mountain landscape on the last narrow gauge railway still existing in the US. The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway takes its passengers in Victorian-style cars across the San Juan National Forest and the magnificent Animas Canyon on the 45 mile route that separates Durango from Silverton.

Mesa Verde National Park
Explore the subterranean cave dwellings left here centuries ago by the Anasazi, the "ancestors" who mysteriously disappeared around 1300 AD.