Seattle - June 1

Cider tasting

Today’s tour is called “Seattle’s Underground”. Seattle’s

Waterfront 

origin story involves flooding, a fire, and rebuilding. The results of this are steep hills and underground areas and passageways. They can be seen as basements today, but were the ground floors of Seattle’s first buildings before the streets were elevated. Out of the 33 city blocks of Old Seattle’s underground , we tour 3. I thighs there would be a bit more to see, but the appeal of this tour was the guide’s stories. Not all of the areas we visited were connected, so we went down, then, up, down then up a few times.

Fletcher Bay Wines

As today was our last day, one last happy hour

One last seafood meal

was in order. We visited Locust Cider for a tasting flight of 4 ciders, 8 really because we both had 1. All of their ciders are apple based and then flavours are added before they are finished. All were fruit based (peach, watermelon, pineapple) but the oddest one was cucumber…it was quite tasty.

Evening skyline 

In the evening we took the 30 min ferry to

2 stadiums 

Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound. About 25,000 people live on the island. One of the draws of Bainbridge Island is their wine tasting rooms. The grapes are grown in eastern Washington, the wine is made one the island, but

Cool building adornment

not at the tasting rooms. We visit 2 tasting rooms, get a seafood dinner and make the 9:00 ferry back.

Seattle - June 2

Our time in Seattle has come to an end. One of our guides described Seattle as a “3 day city” , and that’s mostly accurate. Seattle’s major tourist attractions could easily be seen in 3 days, but I like our more leisurely approach better. Traveling can be exhausting and we can forget to schedule visits to nap-town. I spent plenty of time in nap town during this vacation.

I’m not sure I’d return anytime soon, but I’m glad I came. 

Seattle - May 31

Space Needle

Weather continues to be chilly before noon, then the

No Way Brosé

fog/cloud burns off and it’s warm-ish. The air has a very fall-like chill to it. It’s pretty rare, that home is warmer than where we are when we’re on vacation. 

Once we were sufficiently full from a room service breakfast and we felt the skys would clear soon, we headed to the Space Needle area, about 2K from our

Chihuly

hotel. We really aren’t observation deck people so we didn’t go up, but wanted to see it and get a souvenir Space Needle for our Christmas tree.

The Chihuly Glass Garden is right next to the Space Needle. This is a smallish museum and garden filled with huge glass sculptures. Very cool. I hadn’t heard of artist

Chihuly

Dale Chihuly, but I think we’ve seen his work in Las Vegas. We sat for a bit of a glass blowing demo. We sat at the gallery’s bar for a refreshment before continuing on to the Olympic Sculpture Park.

The Olympic Sculpture Park is a stretch of park

 Chihuly

along the water with…sculptures. Nice place for a wander.

Next was a bit of shopping. I considered a couple of sweatshirts to combat the morning chill, but just when I think I need a warm layer the sun appears-also I didn’t love anything I tried on. Chris bought a shirt and a hat. 

Chihuly ceiling 

Then somehow it was happy hour. We had a glass of wine, calamari and chowder. This whole Seattle happy hour thing is fine. but not as great at our guide made it out to be earlier in the week. Food is usually a significant discount, but drinks are usually a dollar off…fine, but not amazing. 

After some chill time at the hotel, we visited the Starbucks’ Reserve. This is a big Starbucks, that also

Chihuly boat 

serves alcohol. I tried an olive oil, oat milk latte. I had heard about Starbucks doing olive oil with coffee and wanted to try. It was very good, I’d have again. It was very creamy, and slightly sweet. We paid $22 USD for 2 coffees…not cheap, but nothing here is.

Outdoor glass + Space Needle

The Starbucks was in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood which is an actual neighborhood filled with actual people who actually live here, beyond tourists. This is only the second time since we’ve been in Seattle that we feel were weren’t in tourist-ville, the first was today to and from the Space

Sculpture park and Space Needle

Needle.

We find Capitol Hill Cider and try a flight of 3, 3oz ciders, my 3 are called “No Way Brosé” which I could not resist. I am a cider lover and I’ve never seen a longer cider menu in my life…

Chowder +squid

20 on tap and another 10 in bottles. 

Lastly, was some food and once last cider at what I guess

Olive oil latte

is our local. I try the basil lemon cider which I would not have again.