Pacific N.W. - Washington
Seattle
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Like most cities, Seattle is ideally approached on foot, one neighborhood at a time, rather than fighting your way on unfamiliar one-way mazes in traffic. Consider taking cabs between the neighborhoods you want to explore (distances are not great) or using public transportation—the Seattle Metropolitan Transit System operates buses and trolleys throughout the city and its suburbs. Ask your innkeeper, always your most valuable resource, for tips on getting around easily, depending on what you want to do. Visitors bureaus are always a good first stop for getting oriented. Stop in at the Seattle-King County Convention & Visitors Bureau for maps, sightseeing ideas, and schedules of current in-town events. The bureau is located at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, 800 Convention Place on the Galleria Level. (Open weekdays from 8:30 am to 5 pm, weekend hours vary seasonally; 206-461-5840; www.seeseattle.org.) The Seattle Art Museum is a city landmark now, with its signature Hammering Man, 48 feet tall, poised to greet you at the entrance. It houses a permanent collection of some 23,000 pieces representing a wide range of art, from ancient Egyptian reliefs to contemporary American installations using photography and video. Of particular note are its collections of Asian, African, and Northwest Coast Native American art, as well as its European paintings. The complete collection actually resides in two separate locations. The majority of it is located in downtown Seattle (100 University Street) in the contemporary building we’ve been talking about; but if you are especially appreciative of Asian art, you shouldn’t miss the impressive collection on Capitol Hill in Volunteer Park (1400 E. Prospect Street). Housed in a building designed in 1933 by Seattle architect, Carl Gould, and known as the Seattle Asian Art Museum, this collection is credited as one of the top ten of its kind in the entire U.S., with an eclectic assortment of art from Japan, China, Korea, India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia. (Seattle Art Museum hours: Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm, except Thursday from 10 am to 9 pm; 206-654-3255. Asian Art Museum hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm, except Thursday from 10 am to 9 pm; 206-654-3206. Web address for both museums: www.seattleartmuseum.org.) Across the street from the Seattle Art Museum is the Harbor Steps, a popular spot for open-air concerts in summer months and a great place for people watching. Take the steps down to the waterfront and enjoy a stroll along Elliott Bay. Museum enthusiasts will also enjoy the Frye Art Museum at 704 Terry Avenue (corner of Cherry Street). Children of German emigrants who rose to prominence in the Seattle of the late 19th century, Charles and Emma Frye owned and operated a large-scale meat processing plant with retail outlets that stretched from California to Alaska. During this prosperous time, the Fryes were able to travel extensively and indulge their passion for collecting artwork. They purchased their first European painting at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and from then on became serious collectors of realist art. Their collection of 19th- and 20th-century paintings grew to more than 230 works in their lifetime. Each piece is on view at the museum today, including the most complete collection of Munich School paintings in this country. (Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm, except Thursday from 10 am to 9 pm, plus Sunday from noon to 4 pm; 206-622-9250; www.fryeart.org.) You’ve certainly heard about Pike Place Market (bounded by 1st Avenue, Western Avenue, Pike Street, and Virginia Street). Situated on 9 acres of now-protected land, it all began in 1907 when the city decided to single out a place where local farmers could sell their produce direct to consumers. The idea caught on in a big way, and today this public market is something more of a cross between a farmers’ market and a carnival. Take all the time you want to browse among the stalls of vegetables, meats, cheeses, flowers, and baubles. Look sharp around the fish stands, where one vendor is likely to throw a whole fish to the other right over your head as they wrap it to order. (Open from 10 am to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday, and from 11 am to 5 pm Sunday; 206-682-7453.) A popular staircase here is called the Pike Street Hill Climb, whose stairs will take you to the waterfront activity along Elliott Bay. Watch for signs in the marketplace directing you there. Pioneer Square traces its start to the mid-19th-century logging days of early Seattle. It’s a small area of only a few blocks, including the original “Skid Road” (Yesler Way), later popularly known as “Skid Row,” where logs were literally slid downhill to the local sawmill for cutting and shipping. Pioneer Place (1st Avenue and Yesler Way) is best known for its Seattle landmarks: a Tlingit totem pole reproduction, a wrought-iron pergola constructed in 1909 to shelter passengers waiting for streetcars, and the Pioneer Building, a six-story Romanesque Revival structure constructed in 1892. For a fascinating and unusual introduction to the salty history of young Seattle in this area, take Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour. It’s an adventurous, 90-minute walking tour beneath today’s street level, for that’s where the original downtown Seattle was located before the Great Fire of 1889. Learn all about it as you marvel at the building fronts of hundred-year-old brothels, shops, dance halls, and emporiums. It’s fun, but not for the claustrophobic. (608 First Avenue between Yesler & Cherry; hours vary monthly; 206-682-4646; www.undergroundtour.com.) Following an underground tour, you might be in the mood for a very different view of the area. Make your way to Seattle Center, just north of downtown and bounded to the southeast by Broad Street, the 74-acre site of the 1962 World’s Fair. (A fun way to get there is by monorail from Westlake Center Mall at 5th Avenue and Pine Street.) Take the glass elevator to the top of the 602-foot Space Needle, where indoor and outdoor observation decks provide a magnificent 360-degree view of the area, weather permitting as usual, and a revolving restaurant serves first-class, Pacific Northwest cuisine. (Open from 8 am to midnight in summer; otherwise from 9 am to 11 pm weekdays, to midnight weekends; 206-905-2100, www.spaceneedle.com.) Other attractions at the center include an amusement park, the very hands-on Pacific Science Center (open from 10 am to 5 pm weekdays, to 6 pm weekends; 206-443-2001; www.pacsci.org) and Children’s Museum (open from 10 am to 5 pm weekdays, to 6 pm weekends; 206-441-1768; www.thechildrensmuseum.org), and several theaters. If you have children in your party, they will probably enjoy a visit to the Woodland Park Zoo, also at the north end of the city, with its hundreds of rare and endangered animals, African Village, and adorable young Asian elephant born in November 2000. Other attractions include two Sumatran tigers born in December of 2002. (5500 Phinney Avenue North; open daily at 9:30 am—call for seasonal closing times; 206-684-4800; www.zoo.org.) Next to the zoo is a beautiful rose garden, with 280 varieties and over 5,000 individual plants. This is one of 24 test gardens in the United States. Just north of downtown, Puget Sound is joined to Lake Washington by an 8-mile ship canal and a system of locks that bisect the city from west to east. Named for a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and Canal were completed in 1917, allowing ships access inland to the then-coveted coal and timber resources on the eastern shores of Lake Washington. A Visitors Center at 3015 NW 54th Street features displays on the history of these structures and on the details of its current operation. (Hours vary seasonally: call 206-783-7059.) If you’ve never seen a lock in action, this is a good place to discover it for the first time. Some 100,000 boats of all different types pass through the lock system each year. If you venture to the Asian Art Museum, take a walk over to the nearby Capitol Hill Water Tower, also in Volunteer Park. You can’t miss it; it’s a circular brick structure, towering above you to a height of about 75 feet. From the top of the tower you’ll have an amazing panoramic view of the area. There’s also an interesting exhibit in the tower about the work of the Olmsted brothers, designers of Seattle’s more elegant parks. The formal gardens of the 43-acre Volunteer Park (E. Prospect Street between 11th and 15th Avenues East) are representative of the work of the Olmsteds, but a truer example of their inspired philosophy (preserving views of the magnificent surroundings whenever possible) is best seen from East Garfield Street. Exit Volunteer Park on its eastern side and make your way north to East Garfield. From here, you will happen upon one of the most picturesque views of Lake Washington, the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and the Cascade Mountains, from a unique roost designed by the brothers. Washington Park Arboretum offers a great number of wonderful walking trails through woodlands and specialty areas celebrating different plants in concentration: honeysuckle, azaleas, rhododendrons, dogwood, decorative cherry trees, and a Japanese garden. (2300 Arboretum Drive East; open from 8 am to dusk; 206-543-8800.) The largest air and space museum in the western U.S. is found here in Seattle. Housed in soaring spaces of steel and glass, the Museum of Flight is located at 9404 Marginal Way South (a half-mile northwest of the city on I-5 at Exit 158). It records the story of man’s air and space achievements in an awe-inspiring setting, combining marvelous, interactive exhibits with actual artifacts. The Great Gallery Complex alone contains more than 50 aircraft, 20 or more suspended above your head! (Open daily from 10 am to 5 pm, except the first Thursday of each month till 9 pm; 206-764-5720; www.museumofflight.org.)
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