Aspen – Day 2

Maroon Bells and Snowmass Village

Next day was as expected I got up too early with huge excitement to catch up the sun rise and it was mystic to watch the light sieving through the mountains and waiting for the sun to come in view. I took my hibiscus tea to the patio and felt the cool breeze on my face while watching the sun rise, while someone was catching up with his beauty sleep, hehehehe. He got 30 mins later and joined me for tea. We got ready and decided to grab the breakfast at the local breakfast café called the French Pastry Cafe & More, ordered some Caprese and Egg Sandwiches and brilliant coffees. I couldn’t resist buying some fresh lemon and cherry tarts, almonds and chocolate croissants for the day and we were headed to another attraction for the day.

Maroon Bells was next, we took shuttle to the spot, more convenient than own car because they don’t allow beyond certain number of cars and beyond certain point to the place. On way we saw the avalanche zones, aspen trees and big beautiful family villas. Maroon Bells are two peaks, Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak and the Maroon Lake at 9,580 ft was made by Ice Age glaciers. The view did cast a spell on me, the shades of green of the mountains around, the blue-green of the crystal-clear lake and the natural flower beds were too consuming. We spent almost 3 hours basking in the beauty and finally came back to the car park and munched on the croissants and tarts.

It was only half day and with an awesome weather we decided to just drive with hoods down to the nearby places and we chose the beautiful village called Snowmass. It like the typical Christmas village just like the Santa’s Workshop, with all modern amenities and its views are breathtaking, popular ski area with population of 2,826. We drove around, the drive was scenic and we had ranches and horses in clear view which just stole my heart.

There are public bus services within Aspen and Snowmass and people who don’t want to drive to Aspen may also choose to fly in to Aspen. It has Aspen/Pitkin Airport that connects to few major cities like Chicago, Denver, L.A, S.F.O, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Pheonix and Minneapolis.

We drove back to Aspen and roamed in the downtown, enjoyed some shopping and headed for a dinner at a very classy restaurant called Acquolina, which offered Italian cuisine (my favorite). The restaurant had immense bar menu, with 40 pages dedicated of to Whiskey, 20 to Wines, 20 to Cocktails and 10 to mocktails. Husband enjoyed his good old premium single malt whereas I stuck to refreshing mocktail. We ordered clay oven baked thin crust mushroom pizza and some watermelon salad. The food and the ambience both were delightful experience. We enjoyed each other’s company, ate delicious meal and discussed the how beautiful the whole trip was. It was our last night on vacation in Aspen, we drove inside the city passing by designer stores and lively restaurants for some more time before we retired to our stay.