Fort Collins, Colorado

Fort Collins, Colorado, is the fourth most populous city in Colorado and the 156th most populous city in the United States. Fort Collins was founded by the US Army as a military outpost in 1864. Situated north of Denver and tucked between the prairie and the mountains, Fort Collins is the last city on Interstate 25 north before you hit the Wyoming border. It's also a gateway city to northern Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park and Roosevelt National Forest.

It is a prominent college town, home to Colorado State University, a public research university, and the second-largest university by enrollment in Colorado.  As a college town, it has plenty to offer visitors, including a fun art, music, and theater scene, a range of locally sourced eateries, miles of trails, acres of open spaces, and a well-deserved reputation as the Craft Beer Capital of Colorado!

We visited Fort Collins ten years ago for the day to take a tour of the New Belgium Brewery--see that post on this link. On this visit, we had plans to stay in the town for a few days to use it as a base for some local scenic road trips. We passed many modern suburban homes in the area and charming older homes in the city center.

We stopped at a Fort Collins Visitor Center near Old Town to pick up some tourist brochures and information. It was decorated with the green Colorado University Rams insignia portrayed on the college's men's and women's sports teams. A helpful guide told us a few places not to miss on our visit--the Old Town Square and the Annual Flower Trial Garden.

He pointed out a poster on the wall of an overhead drone photo of the Trial Garden and told me that it was early for some plantings, but the tulips should be in bloom.

They were!

Please click on the photo to enlarge it to read the placard information

The Colorado State University Trial Gardens states:

"The purpose of the trial program conducted at the Annual Flower Trial Garden is to evaluate the performance of different annual plant cultivars under our unique Rocky Mountain environmental conditions. Our growing conditions are characterized by high altitude, intense solar radiation, drying winds, severe hailstorms, large fluctuations between day and night temperatures and a season-long need for irrigation. Each year, our annual trial consists of over 1,000 different cultivars of annual bedding plants. Varieties are grouped by genus, arranged by color and grown in rows, side-by-side, so as to facilitate the comparison of similar varieties. In addition to the Annual Trial, we also have a Pansy/Cool-season Crop Overwintering Trial that tests a plant’s ability to overwinter in the Northern Colorado climate, as well as a new two-year Perennial Trial program designed to test newer perennial cultivars that have been introduced in the past three years or less."

As our visit took place in April, tulips, daffodils, and other spring bulbs and plants were the only flowers growing so beautifully! There were also hundreds of flower pots waiting to be planted. The grounds look exceptionally beautiful in summer when everything is blooming.

I enjoyed taking some close-up photos of the flowers.

Almost directly across the street from the Trial Garden I saw a giant Campbell's Soup can! I later found it was one of three soup cans that were placed on display when Pop-art icon Andy Warhol visited Fort Collins in 1981. Collectors John and Kimiko Powers sponsored an exhibition of his work at Colorado State University. It was a memorable visit for many!

Our Next stop was the Old Town Square

The well-preserved downtown includes over 20 restored historical buildings, which are part of national and local designated historic districts. Inspiration for Disneyland’s Main Street USA was based on Old Town Fort Collins' turn-of-the-20th-century charm, character, and architecture.

Downtown Fort Collins is filled with unique, locally-owned stores, boutiques, and specialty shops with elaborate window displays beckoning you inside. There are also a variety of restaurants, bars, bistros, lounges, and pubs.

One alleyway led to a historic firehouse that is now an independent bookstore!

I enjoyed window shopping at the stores and admiring the public artworks

We also enjoyed listening to a visitor playing a street piano on the square.

 Dinner time approached, and we wanted to return to a nearby town of Severance--click here--to read that post, to dine, as we heard they had the best Rocky Mountain Oysters. 

If you don't know what Rocky Mountain Oysters are, click on this hyperlink to find out--they taste better than you would imagine!

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