Seattle

If you’re planning a trip to Seattle, here are some tips for you. The city has a fantastic public transport system, so you can go from the airport to downtown by train. When I stayed there in July I had chosen a hotel called „The Mediterranean Inn“ in Queen Anne that had good reviews, is in walking distance to the Space Needle and has a rooftop patio with a stunning view of the Seattle skyline.

From Queen Anne to Pike Place Market

From the hotel you can walk along the shore of the Puget sound to Pike Place market, one of the famous attractions of the city.
It’s nice to walk there, besides the view of the harbor, there are some art pieces in the park and people from animal shelters walk their dogs.

Even if you’re not interested in anything the market has to offer (as a Vegetarian you might feel sorry for the tons of dead fish), it is still a nice place because they’ve got small bakeries with nice pastries and good coffee (but also the first Starbucks store is located there, you cannot escape Starbucks in Seattle).

Around the waterfront

When you walk along the waterfront, you should have a look inside „Ye Olde Curiosity Shop“ (located at Pier 54) – it’s more than an ordinary gift shop, it has skeletons and a mummy, so I liked it a lot.

The harbor cruise is something you should consider as well – you go past some industrial plants and dock cranes. The mountain you see in the background, is, I think, Mt. Rainier. And by the way, there is only one company that offers whale watching directly from Seattle and you have to book it in advance.

One of my personal highlights in Seattle was Chihuly Garden and Glass which is located directly under the Space Needle.

Fremont

A district you shouldn’t miss (and where I will stay next time I’m in Seattle) is Fremont. Yes, it’s where the famous Troll is (it was created for some art competition), but that’s actually not why you should go there: it’s a nice area with lots of small houses in various colors and small cafés (not chains!).

The sculpture of Lenin was brought there by a guy who liked the artwork and stumbled upon it in Slovakia (and it’s supposed to be special because Lenin is surrounded by guns and flames, not by books – the way he’s normally portrayed).

If you’re interested in art, you shouldn’t miss SAM, Seattle Art Museum. It’s huge and when I was there, it had an interesting exhibition about Native American Art.

Native American Art at SAM, Seattle — Masks of the Animal Kingdom Dance, SAM, Seattle

Another thing you should do is an underground tour of Seattle: The central business district got destroyed in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, so it had to be rebuilt. The houses you can see nowadays are twenty feet above the original street level, so you can walk under the sidewalks and see some parts of the first houses of Seattle. In the tour you learn a lot about Seattle’s history, but it’s also very entertaining and funny because the tour guides (thank you so much, Dean – you were great!) are talking a lot about crappers and its importance to the city. But I’m not going to give away all the town’s secrets – do the tour and find out yourself!