Keystone Colorado Summer Festivals

Keystone is one of the hidden gems of Colorado during the summer months. Quite surprisingly, Keystone actually offers more things to do during the off-season than the on-season. During the winter months, Keystone is home to one of the most popular and best ski resorts in North America, offering one of the longest ski seasons thanks to some of the most advanced snow making equipment available and the high altitude of the Rocky Mountains. Keystone is also home to the longest ski day in Colorado with the vast area of lit ski trails so you can ski at night.

During the summer months, however, Keystone certainly is a hidden gem among destination resorts. Unlike most other resorts that shut down for the summer, Keystone is wide awake and hopping during the cool Colorado summer. Just about every weekend you can find a new thing to do a Keystone, whether it be a brand new festival or new activity…it’s all possible at Keystone Resort, Colorado.

Whatever your fancy is, there is a day to celebrate in Keystone Colorado. Beer festivals, wine festivals, art festivals, bike festivals. Can you think of any more? Whatever festival you can imagine, Keystone has it during the summer months. The best part is that all of these fun festivals are usually free to attend for the entire family. No wonder so many people are finding that Keystone is one of the most up and coming places to visit in Colorado!

Coming Summer 2006 to Keystone Colorado are the following festivals:

Blues Festival and Art Show at River Run Village in Keystone, Colorado
July 8 & 9 in Keystone’s River Run Village.
If you like blues bands, this is the place to be right in the middle of the town. Enjoy food, drink and lots of acoustical music from a wide variety of musical artists. Art vendors from all around the country will be there as well for the art show. Don’t miss it right here in Keystone’s River Run Village!

Bluegrass & Beer Festival at River Run Village in Keystone Colorado
August 5th and 6th in Keystone’s River Run Village.
Over 25 of Colorado’s top brewers will be attending including Artic Craft Brewery, Avery Brewing,Blue Moon, Backcountry Brewery, Blicks Brewing, Boulder Beer Co, Breckenridge Brewery, Dillon Dam Brewery, Durango Brewing Co, Estes Park Brewery, Flying Dog Brewery, Great Divide Brewing Co, Great Northern Tavern, Hops Grill and Brewery, Left Hand Brewing Co, New Belgium Brewing Co, Odell Brewing Co, Oskar Blues Brewery, Palisade Brewery, Phantom Canyon Brewing Co, Pug Ryan’s Steakhouse and Brewery, Redstone Meadery, Ska Brewing Co, Steamworks Brewing Co, Tommyknocker Brewery, Trinidad Brewing, Wynkoop Brewing. Bluegrass music will be playing from several top bluegrass bands, so sit back and enjoy the local atmosphere and sip that beer all you want. Make sure you don’t have to drive home!

Wine, Jazz, & Sculpture Festival at River Run Village in Keystone Colorado
August, 26 & 27, 2006 in Keystone’s River Run Village.
A full weekend filled with jazz music and wine tasting from wineries all around Colorado and the world. Wine tasting seminars are on-going all weekend.

Taste of Keystone at River Run Village in Keystone Colorado
September 2nd in Lakeside Village at Keystone Lake in Keystone Colorado
Make sure you starve yourself before attending this one! Enjoy a weekend of sampling the best of what Colorado has to offer in the food arena. Lets not forget about the dessert either! Live music and food samples all day.

Peter is owner and operator of SummitCove Vacation Rentals in

Sometimes, you just have to get away from it all. The frantic pace of daily living all too frequently can become overwhelming – from the pressures of working, to rushing back and forth to sporting events and school concerts, to just figuring out what to serve for dinner. Life in suburbia is more complicated than most people are willing to admit.

So when you’re looking for a refuge, a place to escape from the chaos, where should you go? Many couples and families prefer to spend their vacations at mega resorts in bustling tourist destinations. The idea is to provide a bevy of luxurious amenities thought to make your vacation simpler and more relaxing. Or do they? Will an overabundance of options, such as game rooms, swimming pools, room service, and spas really simplify life on vacation?

Or might they just further serve to unsettle an already stressful exodus? Traveling, whether alone or with a spouse or with children, in and of itself is hectic. Many large hotel resorts offer families so many varied activities and distractions that it can only makes your vacation seem even more fevered, not to mention time spent chasing the kids around and monitoring them in their pursuit of pleasure.

There is another issue as well – the money. Large commercial resorts can seriously injure your wallet. From the suite, to the meals, to the entertainment, to the activities; by the end of the vacation your swollen debt could easily heighten the stress you felt when you left home! Finally, many people simply don’t care for the environment of a mammoth resort. It can seem merely an extension of the maniacal hubbub you left behind. Is this what you bargained for when you planned your vacation?

What’s the answer, you ask? Well, more and more people are choosing to stay in Bed and Breakfast inns offering a wonderful retreat for vacationers in search of local color. More often than not, they are off the beaten path and are operated by gracious owners in a converted, single family home. A Bed And Breakfast (B&B for short) offers a welcome substitute for the restless, mega resort lifestyle, and can be found just about anywhere.

What Can I Expect From A Bed And Breakfast?

Imagine a leisurely drive through a quaint, quiet little town. You move along the main drag, observing the small shops and eateries that line the road. You wander up a long, winding driveway, glancing at stables to your right, and up ahead you see a large, three-story home; the Bed And Breakfast. You park the car and walk in the house where you immediately receive a warm personal greeting from the owner. Typically, this is what you can expect at a Bed And Breakfast.

What Can I Do?

If you think you’ll miss out on a good time the good news is, you never have to worry about things to do when you’re sojourning at a Bed And Breakfast. You’re on a pilgrimage of discovery where you’ll savor the many wonderful opportunities to observe or participate in small town ambience and events.

What you’ve chanced upon is an occasion to become steeped in local color. More and more smaller communities are seeing older residences being converted into Bed And Breakfast Inns allowing guests a liesurly way to take advantage of local festivals, art shows, races and marathons, auctions, and other delightful small town events.

You can also branch out to experience attractions unique to the area; perhaps a small town Bed And Breakfast located in the mountains will be able to provide you with information about hiking, fishing or caverns. A Bed And Breakfast near the ocean may yield walks and relaxation on an un-crowded beach. The possibilities are endless and far less structured than resorts in heavily touristed destinations. Now isn’t that a prospect well worth considering? Think Bed and Breakfast!

Robert G. Knechtel operates several websites including

Named after the colony of seals that inhabited the island and surrounded by the great whites that prey upon them, it’s astounding how such a desolate location can bear testimony to conquest and victory.

In the early 1500’s when the Portuguese, British and Dutch used the island as a prison to rid themselves of the native people who questioned having their land and cows interfered with, in return for little or no explanation. This was the beginning of a tendency the island was to bear for many years to come, an outpost for those brave enough to stand up to various outlandish forms of oppression.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

One such man broke the island’s spell upon his release on 11 February 1990 and today his story carries universal appeal. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela pledged to die for the ideals of equal opportunities and a true democratic, free society. After many years of struggle, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island for standing up to the government in favour of these ideals.

Through the years he stood fast to Einstein’s view that the same mindset that created a problem cannot be the one that solves it. As a result, his forgiveness, fairness and equality resulted in his inauguration as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on 10 May four years after his release.

World Heritage site

The buildings on the Island are the only remnants of its history, the rest lives on in the people who were imprisoned there, and to them it remains a triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

For tailor-made travel advice to South African destinations such as capetown.cityguidesa.com Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and The Garden Route use CityGuideSA.com CityGuideSA.com!

England has many fine, historic and beautiful towns and villages but it would be hard to find a town that could surpass Winchester in its beauty.

When you think of the quintessential ancient, historic English town, what does you imagination conjure up? The town would be full of old medieval, Georgian and Victorian buildings that are nestled into one another. There would be a beautiful winding river running through the centre of it. Of course it would have a beautiful Norman church set in a green. The roads and lanes would be small and intimate, crammed with delightful shops and restaurants. What imagined English town would not have a king or two buried in the church grounds: perhaps even a saint or two. And of course it would have a long association with artists and writers, beguiled by the town charms; and would it be stretching the dream too far to suppose that world famous writers lived, died and were buried there.

If you come and visit Winchester you may think you are dreaming, for the town has all of the above and so much more.

The town is settled into the soft rolling hills and meadows that are found on the edge of the chalk-downs in the county of Hampshire. It would be fair to say that the county of Hampshire is what most envisage when the think of what the English landscape should look like. And the approach into Winchester on any road is delightful.

The River Itchen runs through the middle of the town. In fact many tributaries and streams run through the town. In medieval times the town was famous for it’s cultivation of watercress (the plant is still grown outside of the town). Watercress requires water of exceptional clarity and purity in which to grow, and the River Itchen’s water is crystal clear. In fact the river is so clean that when you stroll along its banks you can see the many fresh water trout in the river. And I’m not lying when I tell you that you can see anglers fly-fishing in the middle of the town! When you walk along the many riverside walks you will also see ducks, moorhens, swans and all manner of wildlife.

Winchester doesn’t have a Normal church as its focal point; it has a Norman cathedral; arguably, the finest cathedral in England. The setting is also perfect. The cathedral has a park-like setting of grass and shady trees. In summer the vistor can picnic on the lawn along with the local residents.

Winchester was once the ancient capital of Anglo-Saxon England; the other half of England being occupied by Vikings. It was one man who kept the southern half of England free of Vikings and that was King Alfred the Great. He was a local boy, you know. He was crowned king of England in the cathedral and lived and died in the city. You can visit the spot where he was buried alongside his wife and eldest son. He is the only English king to have ever been given the epitaph ‘the Great’.

You can also visit the tombs of other ‘minor’ kings of England in the cathedral.

And what about the saints I mentioned earlier. Well, we’ve all heard about St Swithin’s day and how, if it rains on this day it’ll rain for the next 40 days. St. Swithin was tutor to King Alfred and was also buried in a tomb in the cathedral. It’ll be no surprise to the reader now, to be told that there are other, lesser saints buried within the cathedral.

The beauty of Winchester has always attracted royalty, the wealthy and famour people of the day. It has always been a magnet for writers. Keats was a frequent visitor as was Anthony Trollope; both writer based works on the city and its surroundings. Perhaps the most famous writer who lived in Winchester was Jane Austen who wrote some of the most enduring novels in English. Jane Austen was born in Hampshire and lived most of her life in the county. She died in Winchester and was also buried inside the cathedral.

The items of interest mentioned above are just a fraction of what the visitor can find of interest in this city. There is much, much more. Even if the visitor was oblivious to the town’s rich and proud history and the famous citizens who live and died there, the visitor could not miss the incomparable charm and beautiful that the city has in abundance.

Robin O’Brien lives and works in Winchester and is founder of winchester-tourist-information.com Winchester Tourist Information where you can find more information on the city such as, places to visit, walks, restaurants, photographs and winchester-tourist-information.com/Winchester-accommodation.php hotels in Winchester