Visitors who want to be personally guided to the attractions of Denver and the surrounding areas by those in the know have a variety of choices.

Half- and full-day bus tours of Denver and the nearby Rockies are offered by the ubiquitous Gray Line, P.O. Box 17646, Denver, CO 80217 (tel. 800/348-6877 for information only; 303/289-2841 for reservations and information). Fares for children under 13 are half the adult prices listed below. Prices include entry fees but usually no food. Tours depart the Cherry Creek Shopping Center at 1st Avenue and Milwaukee Street, as well as local hotels and hostels on a reservation basis.

A 4-hour tour (no. 27), leaving at 1:30pm, takes in Denver's mountain parks: Red Rocks Park, Bergen Park, and Buffalo Bill's grave atop Lookout Mountain. It costs $35 for adults. The Denver city tour (no. 28), which departs daily at 8:30am and takes about 3 1/2 hours, gives you a taste of both old Denver -- through Larimer Square and other historic buildings -- and the modern-day city. It's $30 for adults. The city tour combined with the mountain-parks tour costs $60. Gray Line also offers tours of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Colorado Springs area; call or check the website for information.

The Colorado Sightseer, 6780 W. 84th Circle, Suite 60, Arvada, CO 80003 (tel. 303/423-8200), offers guided tours of Denver and environs. The Historic Denver tour includes a visit to LoDo and some of the city's earliest buildings, the State Capitol, the Molly Brown House, and Four Mile Historic Park. It lasts about 4 hours and costs $45 for adults, $35 for children 5 to 12. A Rocky Mountain National Park tour, lasting about 9 1/2 hours, costs $85 for adults and $65 for children 5 to 12, including a box lunch. The 4 1/2-hour Foothills Tour includes stops at Coors Brewery, the Buffalo Bill memorial, and scenic Red Rocks Park. The costs are $45 for adults, $35 for children 5 to 12, and free for children under 5.

The LoDo District (tel. 303/628-5428) leads guided walking tours of the storied area June to October. Tours depart from Union Station (17th and Wynkoop sts.) on Saturday at 10am; the cost is $10 adults, $5 students, and free for those under 13. They also offer different walking tours on Thursday and Saturday afternoons. Take advantage of your cellphone with Rocky Mountain Audio Guides (tel. 303/898-7073), which delivers 40- and 80-minute walking tours of downtown Denver. Call 24 hours before your tour to buy the tours; then you simply dial a number and walk around town, guided via satellite.

Bicycling & Multisport Tours

A few companies operate bicycling and hiking tours out of the Denver area. In and around town, give RMP&E Bike Tours (tel. 720/641-3166) a holler. They offer 3-hour custom tours of Denver and the foothills west of town for $100 per person. They also offer custom rides.

The World Outdoors (tel. 800/488-8483 or 303/413-0938) offers a 6-day, 5-night multisport hut-to-hut tour that begins and ends in Vail (100 miles west of Denver). The huts, described by Mountain Bike Magazine as "luxurious backcountry accommodations," act as recreational headquarters for guests, who have plenty of hiking, rafting, and sightseeing opportunities between mountain-biking treks.

The trips aren't cheap, running $1,395 per person, but this might be the best way for the outdoors enthusiast to enjoy the Rockies west of Denver. The trip runs twice each summer, in June and August. Meals are included, biking and camping gear are not.

Colorado Mountain Expeditions (tel. 877/600-2656) offers supported weeklong treks on the Colorado Trail (which runs 483 miles from Denver to Durango) for about $800 per person, all meals included. The beauty of these trips: You only carry a day pack. A support crew sets up your camp and makes your meals while you focus on the trail, not the campsite.

Another company that offers weeklong tours in the area is Bicycle Tour of Colorado (tel. 303/985-1180). For about $300, a biker can join a tour involving more than 1,000 riders and 70 volunteers -- including medical and bike-tech support as well as guiding services -- on a 400-mile journey that hits six different cities each year, crossing the Continental Divide several times in the process. Although accommodations can be prearranged at hotels, most riders elect to stay at facilities provided by the city (for example, the local high school). All meals are provided for about $300 for the week.

A good resource for bicyclists is the Denver Bicycle Touring Club, which organizes local rides and publishes a monthly newsletter.

Brewery Tours

Whether or not you drink beer, it can be fun to look behind the scenes and see how beer is made. Denver's first modern microbrewery, the Wynkoop Brewing Co., 1634 18th St., at Wynkoop Street (tel. 303/297-2700), offers tours every Saturday between 1 and 5pm. Housed in the renovated 1898 J. S. Brown Mercantile Building across from Union Station, the Wynkoop is also a popular restaurant. At least 10 beers are always on tap, including a few exotic recipes -- the spicy chili beer is our favorite. If you can't decide which one to try, the "taster set" provides a nice sampling: nine 4-ounce glasses of different brews. For non-beer drinkers, the Wynkoop offers some of the best root beer in town. On the second floor is a top-notch pool hall with billiards, snooker, and darts.

Also downtown, Flying Dog Brewery, 2401 Blake St. (tel. 303/292-5027), offers tours Monday through Friday at 4pm and Saturday at 3pm. The brewery is perhaps best known for its labels, featuring art by Ralph Steadman, an illustrator favored by the late Hunter S. Thompson. Next door and also available for public tour is the distillery for Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, which has the same ownership.

Since it opened in 1991, Rock Bottom Brewery, 1001 16th St. (tel. 303/534-7616), has been one of the leading brewpubs in the area. Tours, which are given upon request, offer great views of the brewing process, plus a sampling of the product.

Breckenridge Brewery, 471 Kalamath St. (tel. 303/623-BREW), a mile south of downtown, also lets you see the brewing process. Free brewery tours are given by appointment. In addition to its award-winning ales, the brewery serves traditional pub fare. Breckenridge also has a brewpub at 2220 Blake St., across from Coors Field (tel. 303/297-3644).

In Cherry Creek, Bull & Bush Pub & Brewery, 4700 Cherry Creek Dr. S. (tel. 303/759-0333), produces about 10 handcrafted ales and will give tours of its facilities upon request. Northwest of Denver, the Cheshire Cat, 7803 Ralston Rd., Arvada (tel. 303/431-9000), is an authentic English pub in a historic building (1891) that offers tours on request.

For a look at the other side of the coin, take a trip to nearby Golden for a look at Coors, the world's largest single-site brewery.