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I can't say that I have tested out the Colorado romance angle from personal experience: I went to Vail on an all girls' weekend. And it was a hell of a lot of fun, with horse-back riding, and journalist shop talk, and the vodka flowing freely. But I walked away from it thinking that Vail would be an absolutely perfect spot for a romantic getaway. If you like someplace quiet, serene, stunningly beautiful, relaxed, yet filled with interesting sports, shops, and cuisine, Vail in the summertime can be all things to all people.

Everyone has heard of Vail in connection with skiing, with its famous spot "The Lodge at Vail" at the foot of the slope, and its cheerful, village main street. In the summer, however, the mountains continue to offer a fantastic array of different sports: kayaking, rafting, fly-fishing, hiking, horse-back riding, mountain biking, and just plain picnicking while looking at the view. The mountains glow with a jewel-like green in the evening sun, and we saw colorful wildflowers everywhere on the hillsides. This idyllic setting is further enhanced by having at your beck and call a phenomenal array of restaurants, hotels, hot tubs, swimming pools and chi-chi little shops. All of the glamour of a resort town is there, though without the rush and stampede of the ski crowd. Also, the weather in this part of the country in July is simply perfect. Limpid, clear air, warm in the afternoon, cool in the evening--and the sunsets are an event in themselves.

If you want to take a deep breath, sink onto a lawn chair and relax, this is the work of a minute. (I actually saw a hummingbird in the gardens at the Sonnenalp spa, while lazing around one afternoon.) Alternately, if you feel like doing something energetic and sportif, this can easily be arranged. Vail as a community has given a tremendous amount of thought to how best to serve its visitors, and to direct them to their favorite activities with a minimum of fuss. For one thing, you really don't need a car while you're there—the town is bristling with wonderful spots to eat, and if you want to travel to Beaver Creek (another spectacular place) or anywhere else along the valley, you can hop on a bus. (The bus is free within Vail limits, but $2 each way to Beaver Creek.) If you have the services of a concierge at your hotel, he or she will arrange a day trip for you, anything from ballooning to riding to rafting; or else you can find leaflets describing various activities available everywhere. Most day events, such as horse-back riding or kayaking, run in the $65-75 per person range, which includes all equipment rental, plus the services of a guide and/or a detailed explanation of how to become familiar with the sport.

One important aspect of doing any sort of serious mountain sports is that it helps a lot to have a bit of instruction, especially if it's something technical like fly-fishing or kayaking. Both of these can be mastered enough to enjoy after about an hour of being shown the ropes. I went riding one afternoon, and felt tremendously well-looked-after, and I was even given a picnic lunch. It's probably best to book ahead for events in August, when it's busiest, but usually this is not necessary. The best part of Vail is that you can decide for yourself just what you feel like doing that day.

My Amazonian companions on this trip were incredibly energetic—they were constantly going off to hike enormous distances and do heroic things with boats and fishing rods. I hate to confess this, but I absolutely luxuriated in just sitting around all day, joining them for a fabulous dinner in the evening.

On the other hand, my lazy wanderings around town allows me to suggest first-hand a few favorite corners. And I must start out by saying the reason that I think Vail in the summertime is particularly smashing: in off-season, the deals are fantastic. All of the swish hotels, from what I could make out, offer amazingly reduced rates. (Roughly speaking, a $700 luxury height-of-season room will rent for something like $135 in the summer months.) I poked around happily in The Lodge at Vail (the kind of Grand Hotel of the village, and the first to be constructed in town), and the rooms were very elegant—its Wildflower Restaurant extremely so. I can only sigh in rapture when remembering their breakfast buffet, which allowed me to assemble on one plate everything I like best in the world: fresh raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and kiwis, along with both creme fraiche and creme anglais. This merely formed the prelude to a delicious jumble of shirred eggs, brie and prosciutto, and their currant bread (baked on the premises every morning) is the best in the world. I went back to the restaurant twice, just to taste it again.

The Lodge at Vail is probably the spot in which to stay if you like someplace that is cool and happening—they have a bar named after their sensational pianist, Mickey, and all of the Beautiful People waft through carrying champagne glasses. (Mickey is the best of showmen, and avows that he has stayed at the Lodge for the past twenty-four years because his audience is so wonderful. From what I saw of his performance one evening, the feeling is definitely mutual.)

I myself stayed in the Gramshammer Gasthof, which I loved for being both elegant, quiet and relaxed. Pepi, the legendary Austrian skier who owns and runs the hotel along with his wife Sheika, has been in Vail practically since it started, some twenty-five years ago. This sort of continuity makes for a harmonious community, even though tourists coming through are the town's main business.

But I also adored the Sonnenalp Hotel, which has a beautiful spa, with both an indoor and an outdoor hot-tub; and the pool is surrounded by flowers and quivering aspen trees. It has a waterfall spilling into it. You can sit and watch the clouds floating overhead (Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain has long been one of my favorite novels, so this offered much food for thought).

If I rhapsodize about the restaurants, please just indulge me—I loved having such an array of choices, and such good company with which to enjoy them all. (This definitely proves that Vail is great for an all girls' trip as well.) A quick run-down of my own favorite spots includes, at the top of the list: Sweet Basil (right downtown) and Larkspur (perhaps a four-minute walk away). Sweet Basil has a chic kind of spare Italian feel, with a granite-topped bar and exactly the right lighting in the evening to make one look impossibly glamorous (or at least, to feel that way). I tried their vodka infused with berries, and loved it. The staff can also cook with the best: an "orange roughy" dish for lunch (accompanied by polenta, a chanterelle mushroom strudel, tomato concasse, and balsamic reduction) was heavenly.

As for Larkspur, the whole place hums with a kind of manic good cheer. If you ask the chef to come over to your table, he is beaming. The waiters are beaming, if you like the food. The customers were radiant as well.

This is doubtless because the staff cares passionately about food: the chef, Thomas Salamunovich, is the only person I have heard (besides David Garrido, my own personal icon) who talks about touching the food as he prepares it. This means engaging with its textures, and the way he coaxed flavour out of tuna, smoked salmon and scallops was lyrical. It's not easy to make delicate fish dishes taste good without overpowering them; and his ginger-crusted tuna had flavour but also finesse. At our table, we shared bits from our plates with each other (becoming increasingly beaming, ourselves), so I tasted an amazing array of delights. Oh, it was a great evening.

These are only my two most very, very favorites. Equally good (if not still more gourmet) was the Grouse Mountain Grill (in Beaver Creek, close by), whose chef, Rick Kangas, has been invited to cook at the James Beard House (a signal mark of honour in the profession). He is another chef whose food is full of brilliant flavour. The pan-seared mussels that I tried came with a chili-pepper and tomato sauce, which I couldn't bear to send away, but stole out of the dish with bits of the excellent white bread. (If you can make bread taste fantastic, you have arrived.) I also tasted the Colorado lamb—a local specialty—and the New York strip steak, which came with a rich, figgy sort of chutney.

Now, the important thing to note about Vail is this: you can easily stroll about and find some fantastic haute cuisine sort of place. Alternately, you can dine simply and without fuss, and then take an after-dinner walk, or go on to a night club afterwards, or hear Mickey play the piano in his bar at The Lodge at Vail. The next town over from Vail, Avon, has a Denny's, if you just want to have a plain coffee-shop meal. Also, an Outback Steak House has recently opened in the area, if you like something hearty and informal. (My dad loves the Outback Steak House.) There's a great little Haagen-Dazs in Vail, across from the Sonnenalp, and you can pop into the market in the same little square and buy an apple and some cheese for a picnic lunch. My friend Ian describes the dress code in Vail as "Mountain Casual," meaning that really anything goes—and the same is true of everything to do with dining. It's totally relaxed.

The other remarkable feature of Vail—besides the utterly fantastic display of columbines, which bloom next to every sidewalk—is the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. This summer music series hosts several concerts a week, in different venues. It is clearly something that the locals love, and the amphitheater was packed when I saw an evening performance of Broadway hits, starting with songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein and ending with Andrew Lloyd-Webber. I guess this was what really made me start thinking "romance" in connection with Vail—the three performers were singing all of those songs from 1950's musicals that always make me want to cry. There they were, going on about "Some Enchanted Evening," and "People will Say We're in Love" (you will have gathered instantly that the middle-aged part of the crowd absolutely loved it) . . . and in fact I rushed off and called up my husband in the middle of the all-girls' dinner afterwards, just to sigh a little. "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy," what can I say?

In addition to the grand extravaganzas, however, the music series also offers a number of chamber concerts, which sound terrific. You can look at the entire program on their website, and see if something in particular appeals to you. What I also loved, on the local Vail scene, was the Vail Valley Rodeo, which happens every Thursday, mid-June through the end of August, in Edwards, a town close to Vail itself. The rodeo is definitely a family affair, with events for children to participate in. But the professionalism and excitement were also riveting; I saw several women do barrel racing (careening with their horses in a figure-eight pattern) that was exhilarating to behold. And, yes, the guys got on those bucking broncos, wearing cowboy hats. It felt real, and interesting, and like a lot of serious professional people were exulting in showing off their (pretty damned impressive) stuff.

If you come during the summer months, Vail has all of the comfort of a small town, yet a lot of the sophistication of the city. The one thing I must warn everyone of in advance, for budgeting purposes, is that the shopping is phenomenal. Summertime bargains were fantastic. As a newly-married husband, you might find yourself indulgently presenting your bride with a fur coat—on the other hand, it will have been reduced in price by something like 65-70%, so you can become a hero at a substantially reduced rate. I myself bought a leather jacket that I never took off, I loved it so much (try D'Carlo, across from the Polo Shop on the main street). The Golden Bear, a Vail landmark, displays its jewelry so exquisitely that it is worth strolling through just to see it.

Vail is simply beautiful. The resort town has been created from scratch over the past three decades, and with a lot of attention to not overcrowding its buildings. Everything is artfully arranged, from the rows of international flags which grace the bridge to the boulders which have been specially placed in the stream running through town. Beaver Creek, the resort ten miles west of Vail which has the Hyatt Hotel as its center, has less of a village character, but more of a huddled right in the mountains feel to it.

I thought it was all wonderful. Was it too good to be true? I felt a bit skeptical at first, since everything was so neatly tended—I don't think I even saw any trash on the ground. But then I realized that the undertone of Bavarian jolly ski village has carried through to the resort sidewalks. That passionate devotion to cleanliness that Austrians have—the way that you will see a shop owner in Europe dash water over the sidewalk and scrub away—exactly the same thing goes on in Vail of a morning. So I just gave up trying to be critical, and enjoyed the pristine landscape, and looked up at the tree-covered mountainside, and thought of returning someday . . . .

On the way home in the airplane, I was reading about a new biography of John Adams in the New York Review of Books, and this comment about John's and Abigail's marriage struck a chord: "They were not just man and wife and lovers; they were also each other's best friend." That seems like having it all—in the sense that all of those Rodgers & Hammerstein songs talk about. Perhaps true romance is still being delighted to hear your husband belting out "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" in the shower once again.

And in a much broader sense, I realized that if you love a mountain, or if you embrace nature, you are gifted beyond price for all of your life. The genius of Vail is to make this accessible to the most timid of farers-forth (and the most critical of gourmets). What finally astonished me beyond belief was the open-handed desire of all of the locals whom I met to share the mountainside with anyone and everyone. I should like now to get to know Vail in the springtime and in the fall (maybe one day I'll even learn to ski). So, if you feel a sudden urge to run away--either with a lover, or on your own, or with a pack of rowdy friends, or with small children to whom you want to impart this gift of trees and sky—Vail just might be the place.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

From the Denver airport, you can either rent a car or take the Colorado Mountain Express Shuttle (for which it is essential to book in advance). The drive to Vail takes about two hours. Be sure to pack sunscreen in your luggage, and count on drinking lots of water—it's dry up there in the high altitudes. Next time, I plan to tote along a couple of bottles of Gatorade (the one shocking price I saw: $2.50 a bottle—horrors!).

P.S. I should not, in the end, recommend buying anything from D'Carlo, as the Beautiful Leather Jacket has unfortunately not lasted even a year. (Amended July 2002)

Photographs by Jack Affleck

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