Renaissance Festival

To say I was impressed with the 36th annual Renaissance festival in Larkspur Colorado would be an understatement. Maybe it was because I was expecting some form of street festival but from the moment we walked up to the entrance I was saying, Wow this is freakin awesome!

We walked through the gate into an entire Renaissance town! This town had over 200 shops with artisans exhibiting things such as: art, glassblowing, pottery, jewelry, wood working, blacksmithing, leather working, dragons, swords, renaissance clothing and other period related pieces.

The festival also boasted 7 different performing stages with multiple shows on each stage every day.   We watched live jousting and saw dozens of street performers.  The costumes everywhere were amazing.   I felt very out of place in shorts and a tank top and almost wished I had a corset and 20 lbs of skirting in the 100 degree weather.     

There was a special kids section with a petting zoo, children rides, face painting and mid evil hair braiding. We didn’t ride any of the carnival rides but I was amazed that all the rides were man powered, not electrical. This means that the carousal in the kids section was manually powered by two gals walking in circles pushing the ride along.  Wowzars!  Case was able to pet and feed all kinds of animals including the kings horse who we later saw in a parade through town with elephants, jugglers, jesters, the king and queen themselves were carried in a carriage alongside singers and musicians.  

Case, Cole and I even rode an elephant! Can you believe it?! An elephant!  Did I mention that the whole day was freakin awesome?!!!!  

I am glad we brought our appetites to the festival because they had hundreds of amazing things to choose from including: turkey legs, roasted corn, Leonardo DaVinci meatball sandwich, artichokes, a variety of sausage on a stick, funnel cakes and frozen treats.  The boys ate, of course, fresh cut French fries and ice cream. The rest of the adults sampled a variety of things including: Scott egg, steak on a stake, fried mac-n-cheese, gyros, cheddar brot, blackberry cobbler, root beer and lemonade.  We only spent 3 1/2 hours at the festival but we could have easily stayed the whole day or weekend!  I can't wait to go back again.