L'Auberge d'Aspen, Aspen Colorado

...that our 'room' at the l'Auberge d'Aspen wasn't a room, but a brightly painted little cabin, I was like a kid again - thrilled to bits.

But before going on to describe our little cabin, perhaps a bit about Aspen and why we found ourselves there. At the end of February, I handed in my notice at work and told the boss I was off to pastures new. I had a lot of holiday due to me - partly because my old company offered flexible holidays ...
...went onto expedia.co.uk and found L'Auberge d'Aspen, available on the date we needed it for just £36.14 including taxes. At that price, we thought it had to be worth a try and when I discovered it was even listed in my guidebook as being a really nice place, I went ahead and booked.

===Why was it so cheap? ===
Firstly it wasn't because it was a nasty place - in the peak season, this would be a really dear place to stay because ... more

Ever since I was a small child, I always loved to construct play houses - whether it was camping in the garden, making a mock-home in my granddad's garage or building a tent out of an old sheet and a couple of clothes driers, it was something that always made me happy. As I got older, my ambitions increased and I yearned for a beach hut (despite living about as far from the sea as it's possible to be in the UK) and eventually my husband bought me a 'log cabin' for the garden. So when I discovered that our 'room' at the l'Auberge d'Aspen wasn't a room, but a brightly painted little cabin, I was like a kid again - thrilled to bits.

But before going on to describe our little cabin, perhaps a bit about Aspen and why we found ourselves there. At the end of February, I handed in my notice at work and told the boss I was off to pastures new. I had a lot of holiday due to me - partly because my old company offered flexible holidays and I'd bought the maximum number of extra days. Since I was due to leave at the end of May, I needed to use up 11 days still due to me and so I booked the first two weeks of May as holiday. Normally we take our summer holiday in June and even that can be a tricky time to find somewhere you want to go - first half of May, however, is also very difficult. The types of places we really like are already too hot by then and I like to plan and plot a holiday before I go. Faced with the 'need' to take two weeks - too early in the year for a lot of Europe and too late for Asia, hubby suggested that we take advantage of the ridiculously weak dollar and go and visit our friend Kris in Colorado. Hubby had never been to the USA before (other than changing planes on the way to S. America) and as normally he just goes along with my suggestions, I thought this time, he could have his way. We mailed my friend who lives near Denver, bought the tickets and off we went.

Aspen has a reputation for being very chic, very expensive and full of people my mother would describe as having 'more money than sense'. It's a very high price ski-resort where a 3 bedroom house could set you back several million dollars and there are plenty of $50 million plus properties where you can land your helicopter and have twice as many bathrooms as bedrooms. There are more estate agents in Aspen than I've ever seen in such a small town. Our assumption was that Aspen would be out of our price bracket.

We talked to my friend and to his work colleagues and worked out an itinerary for 6 days touring the Rockies, and everyone told us we should try to see Aspen. Almost as many people told us we wouldn't be able to afford it - and suggested other places near by where we would find better priced accommodation. I went onto expedia.co.uk and found L'Auberge d'Aspen, available on the date we needed it for just £36.14 including taxes. At that price, we thought it had to be worth a try and when I discovered it was even listed in my guidebook as being a really nice place, I went ahead and booked.

Why was it so cheap?

Firstly it wasn't because it was a nasty place - in the peak season, this would be a really dear place to stay because it's very close to the centre of town, not far from the park and ski-lifts, and offers a lot of facilities squeezed into each little cabin. The key reason for the price was the time of year. The ski slopes had closed a few weeks before (despite there still being plenty of snow) and the summer season of weekend festivals was still several weeks away. So the room was available at a tiny fraction of the high season price.

How did we find it?

Aspen's not very big and there's basically one road in and out of town. L'Auberge d'Aspen is on Main Street which conveniently turned out to be (as the name suggests) the main street - i.e. the road into the town. Once we found the site, it was a bit more tricky to find the reception but after asking a couple of other guests I was directed to a cabin at the far end of the site, marked 'Office'. Hubby parked up on a 'strictly no parking' zone whilst I went to find out where to park.

Layout

The Auberge consists of two rows of wooden cabins, spread out over approximately half a block of land. The space between is heavily gravelled with a few shrubs here and there. Each cabin gets its own parking space between it and the cabin next door and there's a wide strip down the central area where you can walk without having to step round the cars. In the middle is a hot-tub which seemed to be out of use. One of the cabins is used as an office and a second one seemed to be used to house cleaning supplies and other stuff for the cabins.

Checking In

The receptionist, a friendly, smiley, Eastern European lady said she was expecting us, confirmed that I'd prepaid the room and just asked for my credit card in case of any extras. I can only imagine that extras were likely to mean 'breakages' as there didn't seem to be much 'extra' available on which to spend our money. She handed me the key, told me we were in room 13 and pointed to a cabin painted purple. Next to each cabin was a numbered parking space so hubby parked up whilst I tried to open the door to the cabin. There were two locks and I promptly got the key stuck in the top one and had to go and ask the receptionist for help. She wiggled the key for a few minutes and then suggested that since the key fitted both locks, maybe I'd better just use the lower one. I commented that it wasn't a very strong lock and she told me not to worry about our stuff getting stolen because 'this is Aspen'. I'm not sure if that meant 'there is no crime here' or 'there are people here with much more valuable stuff to nick than you've got' but either way the message was that we didn't need to worry.

What's Inside?

With the door finally open, we were ready to explore our little wooden home-from -home. Inside we found a self-contained unit with a bedroom, tiny kitchenette area, and equally tiny bathroom. There was also an open fire with a few logs which was very tempting but it really wasn't quite cold enough to justify lighting it. Next to the door was a large wooden wardrobe with a TV and video player on top. There was a double bed with a 'home-made' bedstead made from several gnarled branches. On either side was a fair sized side table with a telephone and a small stereo on one side and a clock radio on the other. Each had a reading lamp.

The kitchenette had a sink with a fridge under and two electrical rings next to it, a cupboard full of crockery and pans, a microwave oven, a toaster and a coffee maker. It's not exactly luxury but if you weren't expecting any of that - as we weren't - it was a nice little bonus and we stuck the coffee on whilst we unpacked. The bathroom consisted of a turquoise toilet and sink that must have dated to the 1970s or early 80s and a small shower. It was all squeezed in quite tightly and the bathroom was a bit on the chilly side.

As well as the double bed, there was a sleeping platform suspended at one end of the room where I guess you could have put a third adult or a child (if you didn't like them much and weren't worried about them rolling over in the night and getting a soft landing on the bed (and its occupants below). There was a ladder to get up there which would have appealed a lot to my 'inner wendy-house-loving child'. But on this occasion I decided to be a grown up and resist the temptation.

Eating out in Aspen is expensive by local standards - i.e. pretty cheap compared to the UK. However, if you were watching your pennies, having the kitchenette would certainly help to cut costs. We found the restaurants to be roughly 50-100% more expensive than we'd been paying in Denver and Boulder. Having a coffee maker seemed to be pretty standard as each of the five hotels we stayed in had some kind of coffee maker available, much to the chagrin of my tea-loving husband.

Around and about

Going out to explore the town, we found we were just a couple of blocks from Paepcke Park - a pleasant park with a small bandstand and plenty of picnic tables - and a couple more into the town centre. In May a lot of the shops and restaurants are closed but since these include Gucci, Fendi, and plenty of swanky top-name designer places, there wasn't a serious risk that we'd have been that bothered if they were open. We got the impression that when Mr Millionaire Ski-man goes to Aspen, his wife/girlfriend/mistress spends most of the day shopping or going to the spa. Despite the drizzle, we spent a few happy hours mooching around town, exploring the art galleries, looking in the windows and then eventually finding somewhere for dinner. Next morning, with no breakfast available at the Auberge, we headed into town to find a nice though rather pricey bakery for breakfast.

Recommended?

We loved our cosy little cabin and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to stay in Aspen - especially if they are looking for a bargain and able to travel at an unfashionable time of year. However, before you rush off to book, I have a piece of sad news. We couldn't work out how the owners could make enough money out of 16 small cabins when logically knocking the whole place down and building condos would generate a small fortune. Sadly that's almost what's going to happen to l'Auberge d'Aspen. Another guest whom we met when we were checking out told us that it will close and the whole place will be flattened later this year to make way for a Jewish community centre. I can't blame the owners for taking the money but it's sad that Aspen is going to lose such a cute and individual accommodation option.

Note - apologies for one of the photos appearing twice. I have tried to edit this but the 'photo edit ' just isn't playing ball today. 

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