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Visit Utah

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Disarmingly pleasant and easygoing, SALT LAKE CITY is well worth a stopover of a couple of days. It's not a particularly thrilling destination in itself, but its setting is superb, towered over by the Wasatch Front , which marks the dividing line between the comparatively lush eastern and the bone-dry western halves of northern Utah, and which offers great hiking or cycling in summer and fall and, in winter, some of the world's best skiing. Salt Lake City's bid to raise its international profile by hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics resulted in a major building program both in the city itself and in the surrounding ski valleys. Nonetheless, though people elsewhere in the US still tend to imagine Salt Lake City as decidedly short on spontaneous public fun, so long as you're willing to switch gears and slow down, its unhurried pace, and the positive energy and lack of pretence of its people, can make for a surprisingly enjoyable experience.

ARRIVAL, INFORMATION AND GETTING AROUND

Salt Lake City International Airport (tel 801/575-2400) is a mere four miles west of downtown. A cab into town costs around $15; cheaper shuttle vans to downtown destinations are run by Xpress Shuttles (tel 801/596-1600 or 1-800/397-0773; reserve 24hrs in advance), while Canyon Transportation (tel 801/255-1841) serves the ski areas. Long-distance Greyhound-Trailways buses , 160 W South Temple Blvd (tel 801/355-9579), and Amtrak trains , 320 S Rio Grande Ave, arrive downtown. Local buses, and also TRAX trams, are operated by the Utah Transit Authority (tel 801/743-3882); journeys within the immediate downtown area are free.

Gray Line (tel 801/521-7060) offers bus tours ranging from city jaunts to multiday trips to the national parks. To reach the best parts of the surrounding mountains, however, you'll need a car - all the rental companies are represented at the airport - or a cycle and strong legs. Bikes can be rented from Utah Ski Rental, 134 W 100 South St (tel 801/355-9088).

Visitor centers supplying information on the city itself can be found downtown at 90 S West Temple Blvd in the Salt Palace Convention Center (Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm, Sat & Sun 9am-5pm; tel 801/521-2822, ), or in Terminal 2 of the airport (daily except Sat 9am-9pm). For details on the rest of Utah, stop by the Utah Travel Council, which occupies the imposing Council Hall across from the capitol at 300 N State St (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm; tel 801/538-1030). The downtown post office is at 230 W 200 South St (Mon-Fri 8am-5.30pm, Sat 8am-1.30pm; tel 801/978-3001; zip code 84101).

EATING

Though Salt Lake City has a perfectly good selection of restaurants , it lacks an atmospheric - let alone hip - dining district. If you like to compare menus, the only downtown area with much potential is the block or two to either side of West Temple Street, south and east of the Salt Palace.

Bambara   Hotel Monaco , 15 W 200 South tel 801/363-5454. Chic, post-Deco and pricey downtown restaurant, with a fabulous menu ranging from buffalo carpaccio or crab cakes to lamb sirloin on du Puy lentils.

Lamb's Restaurant 169 S Main St tel 801/364-7166. Great breakfasts, best eaten at the long shiny counter, and excellent-value set meals throughout the day. Closed Sun.

Market Street Grill 48 Market St tel 801/322-4668. As close as Salt Lake City comes to a New York City bar and grill. Fresh seafood, especially oysters, plus steaks in all shapes and sizes. $8 lunch specials, full dinners $15-30.

Martine's 22 E 100 South tel 801/363-9328. Formal, dimly-lit but high-class Southwestern restaurant, in central location facing the ZCMI mall; most menu items can be served as "tapa" (appetizer) or entree. Closed Sun.

Oasis Café 151 S 500 East tel 801/322-0404. Classy but inexpensive café, serving very good food (dinner entrees $13-20) with plenty of appealing vegetarian options. Live acoustic music or jazz in the evening.

Orbit Café 540 W 200 South tel 801/322-2808. Large, (post)modern diner, which serves tasty sandwiches and ethnic specials for lunch, and then fancier late-night meals (until 4am Fri & Sat).

Rio Grande Café 270 S Rio Grande tel 801/364-3302. Spirited and stylish Mexican cantina in the old Denver and Rio Grande railroad station, still used by Amtrak, three blocks west of downtown.

Ruth's Diner 2100 Emigration Canyon Rd tel 801/582-5807. Good-value indoor and patio dining, often accompanied by live music, set in and around old railroad carriages in a narrow canyon just three miles east of town. Wide selection of fresh dishes, great salads and Utah's best breakfasts. For more sophisticated and expensive fare, Ruth's sister restaurant, the Santa Fe , is next door.

DRINKING AND NIGHTLIFE

Salt Lake City doesn't roll up the sidewalks when the sun goes down. Many drinking venues are technically private clubs, in which a nominal membership fee entitles the cardholder and up to five guests to two weeks' use of the facilities, but there are also a handful of brewpubs , for which membership is not required. To find out about the broad range of fringe art, music and clubland happenings, pick up free papers such as City Weekly or the monthly Catalyst , or tune to radio station KRCL 91FM.

Dead Goat Saloon 165 S West Temple Blvd tel 801/328-4628. Raucous, semi-subterranean saloon, with live loud music most nights.

Squatters Pub 147 West Broadway tel 801/363-2739. Casual, friendly brewpub with a range of beers available until 1am every day, plus a simple menu.

Zephyr Club 301 S West Temple Blvd tel 801/355-2582. Salt Lake's premier live music venue, with semi-famous jazz, blues, country or rock names most nights. Upmarket clientele, elegant decor, cover $5-15.

Quite why the Mormons chose not to put their Temple on the gentle hill that stands above today's Temple Square is anyone's guess. As a result, when Utah was granted statehood in 1896, it was free to become the site of the imposing, domed Utah State Capitol (summer Mon-Sat 6am-8pm; rest of year Mon-Sat 6am-6pm; free). Along with the plaques and monuments you might expect, the corridors of power are packed full of earnest and rather diverting exhibits of great Utah moments.

 

CAPITOL HILL

Now called Capitol Hill , the neighborhood around the capitol holds some of Salt Lake City's grandest c.1900 homes, with dozens of ornate Victorian houses lining Main Street and Quince Street to the northwest; walking tour maps of the district are available from the Utah Heritage Foundation, 355 Quince St.

DOWNTOWN SALT LAKE CITY

A block east of Temple Square along South Temple Boulevard, the Beehive House (Mon-Sat 9.30am-4.30pm, Sun 10am-1pm; free) is a plain white New England-style house, with wraparound verandas and green shutters. Erected in 1854 by church leader Brigham Young , it's now a small museum of Young's life, restored to the style of the period. Free twenty-minute tours, which you have to join to see much of the house, are given at least every half-hour.

The Family History Library , across West Temple Boulevard from Temple Square (Mon 7.30am-6pm, Tues-Sat 7.30am-10pm; free; ), is intended to enable Mormons to trace their ancestors, and then baptize them into the faith by proxy, but it's open to everyone. The world's most exhaustive genealogical library is surprisingly user-friendly, giving immediate access, through CD-ROMs and banks of computers, to birth and death records from over sixty countries, some dating back as much as five hundred years. All you need is a person's place of birth, a few approximate dates, and you're away; volunteers provide help if you need it, but leave you alone until you ask. Next door to the library, the Museum of Church History and Art (Mon-Fri 9am-9pm, Sat & Sun 10am-7pm; free) charts the rise of the Mormon faith in art and artifact.

The area southwest of Temple Square, now the site of the massive Salt Palace convention center and sports arena (home of the Utah Jazz basketball team), has undergone a rapid transformation. The surrounding district of brick warehouses around the Union Pacific railroad tracks is quickly filling up with designer shops and art galleries, signs that even Mormons can be yuppies.

 TEMPLE SQUARE

The geographical - and spiritual - heart of Salt Lake City is Temple Square , the world headquarters of the Mormon Church (or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints - LDS). Its focus, the monumental Temple itself, was completed in 1893 after forty years of intensive labor. The multispired granite edifice rises to 210ft above the city - it's not the tallest building on the mainly flat skyline but, thanks to its crisply angular silhouette, it's just about the only interesting one. Only confirmed Mormons may enter the Temple, and even they do so only for the most sacred LDS rituals - marriage, baptisms and "sealing," the joining of a family unit for eternity.

Wander through the gates of Temple Square, however, and you'll swiftly be snapped up by one of the many waiting Mormons, and shepherded to join a free 45-minute tour of the various sites within. As well as monuments to Mormon pioneers, you'll be ushered into the odd oblong shell of the Mormon Tabernacle . No images of any kind adorn its interior, which is home to the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir; a helper at the lectern laconically displays its remarkable acoustic properties by tearing up a newspaper and dropping a nail. There's free admission to the choir's 9.30am Sunday broadcast, and its rehearsals on Thursday evenings at 8pm.

The primary aim of the tours is to awaken your interest in the Mormon faith; differences from Christianity are played down in favor of a soft-focus video of Old Testament scenes. The tour ends in the northern of the Square's two visitor centers , where an array of touch-screen computers provide woolly answers to questions like "What is the purpose of life?" and "Who was Joseph Smith?" In the southern visitor center, a surprisingly good free movie tells the story of the arrival of Salt Lake City's first Mormon settlers.