A few of the attractions of Denver

As a Brit, I'm unashamedly and probably unjustifiably confident in believing that we do big gardens better than anyone else. Forgive me – after all, we don't have THAT much to show off or feel superior about. One year I took my parents and my sister and her partner to a major international garden exhibition in Holland and we strutted around feeling horribly superior about the national gardening efforts of our European neighbours. We are blessed of course with fabulously awful weather that favours gardens (i.e. lots of rain) and with a national obsession with green stuff. Every Friday night BBC 2 shows back to back gardening programmes. It's sad but almost true.

Our garden of course is a weed-ridden disgrace with more moss than grass but despite that, we still expected to be able to swan around the Denver Botanical Gardens looking down our noses at what they had to offer. We were staying with my friend Kris who's a local boy and were preparing ourselves for being pleasantly polite and mildly patronising about the Botanical Gardens which were his choice for our first attraction in the city.

We arrived mid afternoon and parked our rental car in the free car park. In typical American style, the spaces were large and the parking was really easy. From the car park we could already see the giant greenhouse rising up in the centre of the gardens like a geodesic dome. Kris got a discount on the entrance price as a local whilst we paid full price but I can't grumble about that and indeed I think it's only fair that local people should benefit from better prices.

Once inside we were really pleasantly surprised at the breadth of what there was to see on this 23 acre site and at the quality of the planting and the care that had clearly gone into keeping everything pristine. I'm told there are 9500 species of plants but I didn't count so I'll take that on trust. From fabulous calming oriental gardens to cactus gardens and educational exhibits on how bees make honey and how plants reproduce, there was something for everyone. We were there in May, still a time of year when Denver can get hit with snow, and the flowers were a couple of months behind their European cousins and the trees were in blossom. But spring is my favourite time of year so who can complain about getting to see an extra spring a couple of months later. I also really enjoyed the many and varied sculptures and works of art around the gardens – from traditional bronzes to graffiti-style walls and giant ethnic carvings, there really was a bit of everything. There are also lots of small pavilions scattered amongst the plantings – great places to take a break and just soak up the atmosphere. I was also impressed to see that everything had been laid out to make access easy for visitors who were less mobile and was nearly run down by one visitor in a motorised wheelchair as she whizzed past.

The use of water in the park is particularly noteworthy and surprising considering that Denver struggles to have enough water at some times of year. The reflections of the trees in the lakes were memorable and my camera was twitching each time we passed another display.

Towards the end of our visit we headed inside to check out the greenhouse. In the lobby we found a lovely display of bonsai and a shop selling all sorts of gifts and memorabilia. Entering the greenhouse the temperature and humidity shot up immediately and we sweated our way around, taking in the beautiful orchids and bromeliads and tropical exhibits including some very impressive bananas which were fortunately just out of reach. Part of the exhibition was closed off for repair work which meant that the logical flow through the greenhouse was disrupted but it was no great hardship to figure out our own route through the place.

In total we spent about an hour and a half in the gardens and really enjoyed ourselves. I'd recommend a visit to this lovely site – it's big enough to offer a wide diversity of flora and style without being so big that you have to fear you've missed something important. It's a very manageable size and I was utterly wrong to expect it to be anything less than splendid.

After nearly two weeks buzzing around Colorado, we realised that we'd hardly be able to hold our heads up high when we got home if we had to admit that we'd actually spent hardly any time in Denver. Just the day before we were due to leave, we'd still only been into the city once, to visit the botanic gardens. We'd undoubtedly look like idiots for being so close and seeing so little so we checked out the guide books and headed into the city – not entirely confidently as two weeks driving around the mountains hadn't really prepared us for big city driving.

We had identified an area where we wanted to see several things and so we pointed our noses in roughly the right direction for the Capitol Building and the Art Museum and decided to kick off with a bit of history before a dose of culture. We wandered through the Civic Centre Park which lies between the Colorado State Capitol and the City and County Building. We stopped to look at Colorado's own Liberty Bell, admired some decorative metalwork showing many of the state emblems (who's have thought it; Colorado has its very own 'state dinosaur'), a big statue of a Civil War soldier and to take photos of the mile markers on the steps. We noticed that the building looked familiar although neither of us had seen it before and then twigged that it's a lot like the Capitol building in Washington DC. The building is built of Coloradan white granite, and is topped off with a grand dome that's currently coated in gold but was originally topped off in copper until someone realised that copper goes green quite quickly. And then, without any further thought, we proceeded to pull off an audacious and entirely unintended break-in to one of the most important buildings in the city.

It wasn't with any malice or bad intent that we did this. We just weren't on the right side of the building and that in itself isn't so surprising when you consider that the building is symmetrical with all four sides looking pretty much identical. So much for heightened security, as an employee left the building with the door still open behind him, we slipped in and wandered around just by the offices of some important local bigwigs. Only when we saw the security guards and the metal detectors and x-ray machines did we realise that US security isn't all it's cracked up to be.

We found the tour desk which is also the souvenir counter and were told that the next tour would be starting in about 25 minutes but there was a cafeteria downstairs where we could get drinks and a place to sit down. We were also told that they couldn't guarantee us places for the tour of the dome and the attic but if we turned up at the right time, we'd 'probably' get in. Probably was good enough. We headed down to the basement for cold drinks and cakes and marvelled at how easy it had been to break in to the State Capitol.

We returned to the desk at the allotted time and joined a group of about 8 people which steadily grew in numbers as the tour progressed. The guide was a volunteer who clearly loved her job and was happy to answer any questions – even the ones from the astonishingly boring Civil-war-obsessed guy who wanted to ask more questions than any human being should ever ask in a lifetime, let alone in a brief tour. She led us first around the ground floor, explaining the bizarre history of the building and telling us how it had – like most public projects – gone way over budget and way off its timeline. The architect had big ideas and an attention to detail and insistence on getting precisely what he wanted that wouldn't be unusual in many current day municipal building projects. Examples included the use of the Colorado rose onyx – a rather garish decorative stone that was chosen to clad much of the interior. Unfortunately in choosing the rose onyx, nobody thought to check how much of the stuff existed in the single source available to them – a quarry in Beulah, Colorado. As a result the onyx supplies were exhausted long before the project was finished and the less visible parts of the building had to be finished off with some (allegedly inferior and certainly less 'loud') imported Italian stone. Within the veining of the onyx, those with a high degree of gullability can be persuaded that it's possible to see the faces of Molly Brown, George Washington and a Christmas turkey to name just a few. There was also so much brass all over the building that my fingers started to twitch with sympathy for the many cleaners who must have suffered over the last century trying to keep the place gleaming.

The full itinerary of the tour escapes me now but there were some notable highlights that stick in my mind many months later. I particularly enjoyed the embroidery of important Colorado ladies – a large hanging covered in pictures each with a story behind them. There was a native American chief's wife who was famous in her own right, lots of impressive frontierswomen with their covered wagons, famous singers and dancers and women who's left their mark on Colorado.

Up the stairs we visited the Presidents' Gallery – a circular balcony about the main staircase, decorated with the portraits of all the US presidents. Apparently some of the presidents have been stolen – some more than once. I know people can be a bit light-fingered on tours but I'm baffled at how you could sneak out of the State Capitol with a framed portrait under your coat. Getting your picture in the Capitol isn't just a privilege of presidents though and throughout the building there are portraits, frescos, and some beautiful stained glass windows showing local people. In one of the assembly rooms there are a row of stained glass representations of the chiefs of local native American tribes. On one landing we also saw a stained glass portrait of Emily Griffith, a local educator who set up education centres for adults who'd missed out on school and was tragically murdered.

One of the chambers for state debates and legislature was used in the old Perry Mason films for the courtyard scenes. To be fair, I had to take the guide's word for that as I have only the sketchiest memories of those films.

The main staircases up the centre of the building are extraordinarily grand and seem to cry out for grand events and ladies in crinolines sweeping down them. A bunch of tourists in casual travel clothes didn't quite match up to what you felt the building deserved. However, the grand staircases aren't the only ones and we learned that the side staircases are decorated with canon balls from the Civil War.

During our visit, there was quite a lot of renovation work going on inside the building with some sections closed off due to the work. However, with the exception of the places we couldn't get to because of the workmen, we did get a good sense that the tour was offering a really good overview of the Capitol and there wasn't too much that we were barred from seeing. The guide frequently used the building's lifts (elevators) to get us around the building because several of the party were elderly and a bit frail. I would imagine that any visitor with mobility issues would find the tour guides are happy to modify the tour to ensure they can enjoy it fully.

After about 45 minutes, our guide returned us to the tour desk and we headed off to take the separate tour of the attic and the dome.

Our tour had been enjoyable, informative and just long enough to feel we'd seen plenty without being long enough to get boring. Considering the tour is entirely free and the building is well worth a look, I'd definitely recommend a visit – and don't forget your camera. There's lots to see.

After we'd completed the main tour of the Colorado State Capitol building, we were still interested enough that we wanted to take the second of the available free tours – the tour of the Dome and the exhibition called 'Mr Brown's Attic'. We'd previously been told that they couldn't guarantee we'd get in, but to just pop upstairs and see if there was space. This was typical of the relaxed spirit of the Capitol building – nobody seemed bothered that we were about to wander off on our own to try to get into the dome. Apparently they have to be quite careful to restrict the numbers on the dome tours because of fire safety regulations – you can't help but think about the havoc that would ensue if the fire alarm went off with scores of tourists squeezed into the dome with only a rickety narrow staircase to get down. If you read my other review, you'll know we'd already succeeded in by-passing all the security to get into the building and were no longer surprised that nobody seemed bothered by odd foreigners wandering around.

We shot upstairs to the dome tour desk and were told that the group already there was small enough that they could squeeze a couple more in without any problems. The dome tours go every hour, on the hour and we were lucky to have avoided getting caught up with a large school party. We had been warned that the climb was steep and not advised for anyone who's claustrophobic or has mobility issues. You wouldn't guess it to look at him but my husband isn't a fan of anything he thinks he might fall off – but by the time we got back to Denver after a week in the Rockies, he was starting to get used to me standing too close to the edge of every major attraction in the state and was a bit more relaxed about taking a steep climb up inside the dome.

So who was Mr Brown? Well apparently the land on which the Capitol building was built was a donation given to the state by one Henry Brown. After 9/11 the dome of the Capitol was closed to the public and when it finally reopened, it came along with the addition of a fascinating museum about the Capitol which goes by the name of Mr Brown's attic.

When you are actually touring the main part of the building, it's very clear that it's a workplace where the business of running the state is going on all around you. The building is NOT a museum with neatly labelled things to look at. It could, I suppose, be said that the entire building is a giant exhibit but it's not a museum as such. The role of educating the public about the building they are visiting goes partly to the volunteer guides and partly to the small museum in Mr Brown's attic, the space below the dome.

Once you get up to Mr Brown's attic, you find a small but well constructed exhibition about the building which lies directly beneath your feet. The attic is a treasure house of photographs, information about the construction of the building and its importance to the surrounding areas, and about Denver and Colorado in general. There's also – and please don't ask me why, I haven't a clue – a scale model of the Capitol built entirely out of food cans. There are also special exhibits designed to be of interest to younger visitors – not so surprising since every Colorado school-kid undoubtedly gets dragged to the Capitol on a school trip at least once in their life.

Next it's time to go up into the dome itself and visitors will be reminded that there are 99 steps to go and offered the opportunity to view a video if the climb is a bit too daunting for them. We headed up – to be honest, it's no big deal. The staircase is solid, not too narrow and you know full well in a country as litigious as the USA that there's no danger whatsoever. Climbing up the 99 steps brings you to the dome itself and it's well worth the effort. We had a young guide who'd been doing the job for only a few weeks and wasn't 100% sure what everything was, but was still clearly quite over-awed by getting such a cool job in such an amazing place.

We spread out around the platform and looked at the stained glass roundels that decorate the base of the dome and commemorate the bigwigs of the city at the time that the building was being built. The guide pointed out various features and bombarded us with facts and figures but we were hoping she'd hurry up so that we could turn round and look out of the windows at the city around us. There are giant sliding windows which must have once been routinely opened to allow people to get a better view but in these days of health and safety, there's no way the public will get out onto the outer platform. Never mind, the views are still spectacular. We could even – with a little 'eye of faith' – pick out the pointed white peaks of the Denver International Airport, many miles away and the Rocky Mountains in the opposite direction.

Closer to the building we picked out the Catholic cathedral and the museum zone with the Denver Public Library, the Denver Art Gallery and the Colorado History Museum. Looking across the Civic Centre Park, we could see the City and County building curving at the end of the park. Between us and the C&C building we noticed the flags of the state and the country hanging at half mast from the Capitol Building's flag pole. We had spotted flags similarly at half mast across the state for a few days before our visit and were told by the young guide that these were to mark the death of two young Coloradan soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

After about 10 minutes snapping photos out of the windows and playing "look! Isn't that the…..building" or "Oh look, there's our car park", it was time to head back down another set of rickety stairs. It's a bit like going behind the scenes of a theatre and seeing all the ironwork and ply-board that keep the whole place together. From the outside where you can see the golden dome, it's hard to imagine the engineering that goes into keeping it safely in place.

The whole tour takes about 30 minutes and is well worth seeing either instead of or in addition to the main Capitol building tour.

Denver Art Museum

After leaving the Colorado State Capitol, we headed off for some lunch and then to the Denver Art Museum. My friend Kris who lives in Denver had shown me lots of photos of the museum but all taken from the outside – he was clearly more interested in the architecture than in the art inside. So I knew to expect some pretty funky architecture but nothing about the art collection.

If you live in the UK where most of the major state museums and art galleries have free entry, having to pay a hefty entrance fee is a bit of a shock to the system. I've been to some of the galleries in New York so I knew to expect to pay a high price, but even so we were a bit taken aback that the tickets were $13 per person. If we'd wanted to see the 'special exhibition' there would have been an additional fee on top.

We entered through the new building – I think it's called the Hamilton building. It's a stunning modern building with so many angles that it's hard to take in what you are looking at. In places it resembles a Stealth Bomber, in others a sharp blade. It's quite extraordinary from the outside but once you get inside, there's not too much evidence of the bizarre structure.

We kicked off our visit in the Modern and Contemporary Art section and were instantly stunned to find some works by really famous British artists included in this collection. My personal favourite was a floating man by Anthony Gormley and a giant blue wall-mounted bowl by Anish Kapoor. There was even a jokey Damien Hirst giant ashtray to giggle over. We also found several brightly coloured 'bar code' sculptures that were very interesting. The slightly less modern part of the modern and contemporary collection included lots of Andy Warhols. We were a bit irritated by all the 'Pah! Call that art!' comments from some of the visitors in this section but that's not unusual – they probably found some nice 'easy' paintings later on that didn't challenge them quite so much.

Also in the Hamilton building is a very interesting collection of 'Oceanic art' – pieces from the South Pacific including brightly coloured sculptures, fabric made from tree bark and very detailed carvings.

Leaving the new building, we crossed a bridge over the road below towards the North Building and spotted our first Georgia O'Keefe paintings. My sister has always been a massive O'Keefe fan so we snapped a few photos to take back and show her. My favourite was a painting of a cow's head with its tongue extended – a very different image from O'Keefe's normal erotic flower paintings. We took a break in the coffee shop where it was possible to get out on the roof and examine some big outdoor sculptures and take photos of the new building.

With coffee and muffins to give us more energy, we took the lifts up to the top floor and worked our way downwards. The top floor had a collection of European and North American paintings which covered the period from the 19th century up to 1945. I didn't find this collection particularly memorable but the floor also contained an exhibition of textiles which included some fascinated quilts and richly decorated clothing.

For the North Building, the fifth floor was my favourite section with its Asian art collection. This contained a very wide variety of sacred and secular exhibits from the India sub-continent, China, Japan, Korea and south east and south west Asia. I've seen many pieces like these in their home settings but it was really interesting to see them all brought together in a modern gallery so far from home. All the pieces were given ample space and good descriptions to help you understand what you were looking at.

The fourth floor contains one of the museum's most important collections – the pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial art collections. Apparently this is one of the finest collections in the world but it's not an era or a geography that I know anything about and the sheer volume of exhibits was exhausting. This struck me as more of a research collection and less a collection that's intended to be viewed and enjoyed. With its fascinating history of native tribes, Colorado's leading art museum could have been predicted to have a fantastic collection of American Indian art and we weren't disappointed. Spread over floors 2 and 3 there were plenty of fascinating, educational and decorative items, some intended as art, and others just showing the craftsmanship of every day items. With beadwork, pottery, paintings, sculpture and even contemporary American Indian artists, there was a real treasure trove of items that we would struggle to have seen anywhere in Europe.

We finally ended our visit with a temporary exhibit on the ground floor showing hand made quilts by a particular group of quilters. I have to be honest, their charms went right over my head. I had no idea why they were supposed to be so precious or so significant as most just seemed to be badly mis-shapen and quite ugly. Never mind, you can't love everything in any museum.

The museum has clearly given a lot of thought to its younger visitors and there are lots of places around the museum where there are special events and challenges for the kids to take part in. There are also 'library' areas with reference texts where people who want to know more can stop and use the books.

We also enjoyed the sculptures in the museum grounds, some of which showed a real sense of humour. Examples included a giant dustpan and brush outside the Hamilton building and a cowboy and Indian shootout on the roof by the cafeteria.

Despite my initial reservations about the cost, I was really impressed by the Denver Art Museum. There's a world-class collection of art and artefacts that really made me wonder that a state museum could pull off exhibits of a class and variety that many national galleries would struggle to match. It's not even as if Denver is one of the wealthiest or artiest of the states and yet the Denver Art Museum can truly hold its head up high as a museum of real quality and diversity. If we hadn't needed to leave enough time for one more attraction that day, I think we'd have stayed for a couple more hours to have a really good look.

Denver Aquarium

The last stop on our desperate attempt to see as much of Denver as we could in just one day was a trip to the Downtown Aquarium. We'd done a bit of history at the State Capitol, had a hefty dose of culture at the Denver Art Museum and now we needed a seriously fishy experience to top off a great day out. I love big aquariums so I was quite excited to see what Denver would have to offer. However I've been to enough aquariums that I'm getting a bit picky about what I like and what I don't and I've become more than a little cynical about the ploys such places employ to try to make the already fascinating underwater world more accessible to the public.

Challenge number one was to find the place. It's not obvious. Like a tantalus, the aquarium is something you can see from quite a distance but you just can't figure out how to get there until the penny drops and you realise the only way to get there is to go in the opposite direction. It took some time but we got there in the end. Pulling up in one of the massive car parks, we could see the Aquarium as a large round mirrored building. The ticket office is on the outside – I guess they want your money before you get a chance to see if it looks like the aquarium will be any good, and it's not an insubstantial amount of money. Entrance for adults is $13.75 and the term 'adult' is imposed on anyone aged 12 or over. Thank goodness there were just two of us because this could be a really pricey day out for a large family.

Never mind the cost, let's see the fish. We entered and got diverted by a tank of beautiful bright green geckos and an old deep sea diving suit – of course we had to take our photos pretending to be old divers. Then we were into the fishy zone and thankfully there were very few people visiting that day so we could take our time. It's a well-worn technique for aquaria to lead their visitors through a range of aqueous eco-systems, showing fresh water, brackish water, open ocean and so on. The aim is to lead the visitor through the different places where creatures are found and showing how they adapt to those settings. Some of this was a tad lame – I like ducks a lot but I'm not entirely sure why they are so popular with aquariums. Some of the exhibits were plain cheesy, most noticeably a gold mine exhibit where visitors can pay a small fee to pan for gold in an old-style sluice. The moment at which I groaned and exclaimed "For goodness sake" was when I passed to orang-utan automaton and just asked "WHY?" There was a ludicrous desert rainstorm exhibit which provided an excuse for a bunch of scary looking rattle snakes and a periodic 'whoosh' of hundreds of gallons of water flooding across the path.

Because it was so empty, we flitted back and forth around the aquarium – not something you can normally do when things are busy. There were two sea otters that were taking a nap and we went back every 15 minutes or so to see if they'd woken up but were disappointed that they never did. Perhaps they were stuffed, who knows. The point at which things really picked up was in the main central tank. For most aquaria this is the section you have to get right or you've blown it – pure and simple. The public will forgive you any misdemeanours; sleeping sea otters, jaded ducks, underactive seahorses and even (at a pinch) stuffed orang-utans are all forgivable if you get the big tank right. And generally speaking, Downtown Aquarium doesn't do a bad job at this. There's plenty of diversity in the big tanks, lots of sharks, lots of turtles, some giant moray eels and lots of different places to stop and look at them. However, whilst the big tanks is OK, the stars of the Downtown Aquarium aren't fish at all; the tigers are the kings of Denver.

I've seen some weird critters in aquaria around the world but never before tigers. These boys were absolutely beautiful. When we first arrived at the tiger enclosure there was one rather sad stripy fella pacing up and down getting a bit ratty. Despite being behind very thick Perspex, you can't help but feel your heart leap in your chest when a full grown male tiger bounds right up to you.

We wandered off several times and kept coming back because one of the aquarium staff had told us that the tiger we'd seen didn't get on with the other tigers and once he went back inside, the others would probably come out to play. Eventually our patience paid off and we returned to find two large Sumatran tigers (the only breed that loves to swim) strolling around the larger enclosure, playing with the water toys and strutting around proudly. Whilst we weren't lucky enough to see the tigers swimming, there was a lot of time to watch video footage of them swimming and playing with toys in the water.

Our final highlight almost passed us by. Near to the exit is a ray pool where visitors are invited to stroke the rays. When we first arrived there was nobody at the pool and it seemed a bit odd to be stroking fish on our own. Then one of the staff came along to feed them and let us join in, holding the food on our hands and letting them swoop over and grab the food. After a while it became clear that some of the rays were more self-confident and assertive than the others and after about 20 minutes we were able to identify the different rays and predict which would nuzzle and which would just grab at the food.

So is the Downtown Aquarium worth a visit? I'd say the answer to that lies more in the attitude of the visitor than in the aquarium itself. We could easily have been round the entire place in 30-40 minutes and back in the over-priced car park feeling let down and over-charged. It was only our determination to enjoy a slightly second-rate aquarium and to find the good in the place that made it such an enjoyable visit. That and the great attitude of the staff who infected us with their love of the animals they worked with which made us want to go back for a second or third look at some of the critters that hadn't been very interesting or very active at first sight.

Would I recommend it? Not for a family visit – we've borrowed friends' children and taken them to aquariums and found that they really don't find them as exciting as we do. Kids that are used to video games and instant action may find the shop at the end of the aquarium more exciting than watching fish and sea creatures. If you love aquariums and have the attitude to look for the good in them, then go. But if you aren't too sure, this is one you can probably give a miss – it's not a world-class aquarium and is really rescued by its tigers.

The Downtown Aquarium has only traded under this name since 2003. Prior to that it was called the Ocean Journey Aquarium and I don't think it was doing very well. As a result it was bought by a chain of seafood restaurants called Landry's. Is it me or does that seem just a bit nasty? "Ladies and Gentlemen. Roll up and see the fish – then eat them"