Women toast with wine glasses at a painting class

Get Your Girl On!

Fans of the television show “Parks and Recreation” know February 13 as Galentine’s Day — a celebration of all your favorite females filled with fun, food, and all the things ladies love. On Valentine’s Eve, or on any other day (like before catching The Secret Comedy of Women — Girls Only), here are some suggestions for delighting your friends, sisters, moms, daughters and any other wonderful women in your life.

An exhibit hall inside the Denver Art Museum

Denver Art Museum. Photo by Linnea Covington

Stop by Hotel Teatro before the February 13 performance of The Secret Comedy of Women – Girls Only for a special Galentine’s Day celebration. The hotel, located next to the Performing Arts Complex, will be serving craft cocktails and hosting several local vendors for gift shopping between 4:30pm and 7:00pm. The event is free with an RSVP, so bring your gal pals and be sure to take pictures with the Insta-worthy photo backdrop.

Art aficionados will want to catch the exhibit Her Brush: Japanese Women Artists from the Fong-Johnstone Collection at the Denver Art Museum, featuring more than 100 works of calligraphy, painting and ceramics, many of which have never been exhibited publicly. The museum’s permanent collection also includes work by legendary artists Georgia O’Keeffe and Mary Cassatt, among others. After the museum, take a one-minute walk for a 30-minute guided tour of the beautifully restored historic home that now serves as the Center for Colorado Women’s History to learn more about the women who’ve made our state great.

Women toast with wine glasses at a painting class

Photo courtesy of Painting With a Twist

If you’d rather create than admire art, Painting With A Twist offers private parties where you and up to nine more of your favorite girls and women can paint your own masterpieces on boards or canvas. You can also create jewelry, coasters and all sort of cute crafts at Upstairs Circus. Both of these venues are in LoDo. Lower downtown is also home to the shops and galleries of Larimer Square…in case you’d prefer to shop instead of make a souvenir of your day. The historic block has a number of great restaurants — and the Mediterranean fare served at Rioja is owned by Jennifer Jasinski, one of Denver’s favorite chefs.

Two women browse a clothing rack

Photo courtesy of Cherry Creek North

More retail therapy can be enjoyed at the 16-block district of Cherry Creek North, which has the area’s largest collection of independent boutiques, shops and art galleries. Here you’ll find a dining scene that ranges from fancy and French (La Merise and Le Bilboquet) to one of the city’s best burgers (the Cherry Cricket). For dessert and sweet treats to take home, make a stop at Enstrom’s, a confectionery store with out of this world toffee.

A dessert tower in the center of a table crowded with plates and treats

Photo courtesy of The Brown Palace

No girls’ day out is complete without some pampering, so make time for at least one spa treatment. The historic luxury of downtown’s Brown Palace Hotel & Spa is just the place, offering treatments with pure artesian well water drawn from 750 feet below the hotel. After massages, pedicures or one of the many services at the salon, you can also treat your gals to the city’s most elaborate high tea, offered each afternoon in the hotel’s ornate lobby. Prefer beer to champagne? Head to the RiNo neighborhood and — if every guest is over the age of 14 — enjoy a full menu of Colorado craft beer-infused spa treatments at The Beer Spa where you can soak in a beer hydrotherapy tub, and de-stress in an infrared sauna, while girls 21 and up can also indulge in a few pints from the onsite taproom. Cheers to a great girls’ day in Denver!