The Particular Light and Slow Afternoons of Denver

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What tends to linger long after leaving Denver isn't just the silhouette of the Front Range, but the brilliant, high-altitude light that fills the city even in the dead of winter. It's the way people sit outside on a forty-degree afternoon in Baker, wrapped in the warmth of direct sunshine, sipping dark roasts and taking their time.

There is an unforced ease to the neighborhoods that keeps people coming back. You hear about the quiet joy of walking Capitol Hill's historic residential blocks when the late-afternoon breeze brings down the smell of pine from the foothills, or how easy it is to get lost inside an independent bookstore off Colfax. Right around dusk, as the mountain shadow shifts over South Broadway, someone unlocks the alley entrance to a warm, brick-walled jazz cellar, lighting the small taper candles along the bar just as...