Downtown Seattle, Seattle

I recently visited Seattle and it is a great city to walk. If you are looking for Seattle things to do definitley check out Seattle By Foot walking tours. Seattle By Foot tours offers four unique walking tours of Seattle. You can select from the Seattle Coffee Crawl, Scenic Emerald City tour, Funky Fremont and Seattle Pub Crawl. If you are looking for things to do outside of downtown Seattle, the Funky Fremont tour heads to the fun neighborhood of Fremont. http://seattlebyfoot.com/

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Downtown Seattle is beautiful to walk especially on a nice afternoon.
Dotted amongst the various buildings are occasional sculptures and works of art.
Old and new blend seamlessly creating an interesting vibe to the city.

Make sure and stop at one of the many cafe's along the way or pubs for a rest and a drink.

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Seattle is known for coffee - But we don't drink coffee

Seattle has some steep hills. So when we came to Seattle to go on a cruise I asked the hotel whether we could see some of Seattle on the flat as it were, since I was sure Bob wouldn't want to push me up hill. They assured me that the area around the hotel and down to the top part of Pike Place Market was pretty flat. And that proved to be true.

Along the way we saw Coffee shops, and Shoe stores, and even the Hard Rock. It was a nice morning jaunt.

other than rain, seattle is very famous for its variety of coffee shops... having drank coffee in over half a dozen countries, i'm not about to tell you that seattle makes the best coffee.. That being said, coffee in the Pacific Northwest is different from other parts of the world and even from other parts of the country... you can't be a coffee drinker and not have heard of Starbucks which was founded in Seattle, but that is FAR from the best coffee in Seattle... i would actually rate it my least favorite of the local roasters.. For some reason, Starbucks is proud of the fact that they burn their beans while roasting and being a true coffee drinking purist (i drink black turkish style espresso even at home), i find that this method of roasting makes the coffee extremely harsh and bitter and all you can taste is burnt beans instead of the subtle flavor nuances that a true coffee freak looks for in a good coffee.. i believe that the reason Starbucks got so popular was that it was the first major coffee chain and that they specialize in making MIXED coffee drinks such as the uber-famous Frappucino and the everyday Mocha... i find such drinks to be an abomination of coffee.. if you really want to experience GREAT PACIFIC NORTHWEST COFFEE, look up some of the local, privately operated coffee roasters like Whidbey Island Coffee, Fuel, Espresso Vivace Roasteria, Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Co., and Victrola Coffee.... also you can visit the Tully's Flagship shop in downtown seattle or take a tour of the main roasting plant in south Seattle which is visible from miles away and from the freeway...

If you happen to see a nearly 70 year old trolley bus wandering through downtown Seattle or one of the other areas near Seattle (or sometimes even quite far from Seattle) it is most likely the Metro Employees Historic Vehicle Association. This group started with King County Metro employees, but today is a non-profit educational and museum group that restores and operates historic transit equipment. Membership is now open to anyone with an interest in helping preserve this part of Seattle's transit hsitory.

There are usually several trips a year in historic transit equipment, including one "fall foliage trip" that runs from Seattle deep into rural King County, and usually one Christmas Lights trip. There are several in the spring and summer months as well.

See the organization's web site, below, for more information about the preserved fleet of equipment and the tours that they operate.

The trips are very economically priced, and operated by volunteers. With anything done with "vintage" equipment, some things don't necessarily work the way they should. Therefore, don't expect everything to go as planned on these trips.

Also, these are transit vehicles, and do not have rest rooms on board. Plan accordingly before boarding.

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To be honest, I wasn’t too crazy about the Seattle skyline. Several skyscrapers were built in the 1970s and 1980s, and let’s face it, those were not the best years for architecture (for example, see Rainier Tower completed in 1977 on photo 3!). Another construction boom occurred in Seattle in the early 2000s, which resulted in an even more eclectic architectural ensemble. Seattle’s post-modern Central Library, completed in 2004, was clearly not built with the objective of blending in! The architects responsible for the project wanted to create a hip space that could accommodate both the paper and digital worlds (the library's collection includes over 1 million volumes and there are 400 computers available for visitors) and where everyone would feel comfortable – as opposed to more traditional libraries, which were deemed to stuffy by some. The 11-story steel and glass structure does offer the advantage of letting the outside in, something you appreciate even more as you make your way to the reading room located on the 10th floor. However, this is not the kind of library I find particularly conducive to research and study, and I think I’d have a hard time finding inspiration there. It still makes for an interesting visit though, and it definitely is a good place to stop by if you're looking for free Internet access.

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When Seattle's Olympic Hotel opened in 1924, it became the city's most luxurious hotel, even described as the finest hotel west of Chicago. Built in the Italian Renaissance style on the site of the first University of Washington campus, the hotel was built at a cost of $4 million, while close to another million dollars was spent on furnishings. Italian workmen were even brought to Seattle to make sure the Palladinian high-arched windows and terrazzo floors would reflect all the luxury of an Italian palazzo. For a long time, the rich and famous would book the Olympic Hotel for wedding ceremonies, debutante balls and birthday parties. However, the hotel eventually lost some of its former glory as more modern hotels were built in downtown Seattle. In the early 1980s, the Olympic Hotel was bought by the Four Seasons group and major restoration work took place at a cost of over $60 million. The Olympic Hotel once again became the city's premier hotel, becoming the only hotel in the state of Washington to receive a AAA Five-Diamond rating.

While not everyone can afford to stay at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, it's still worth going inside to walk around the hotel's magnificient lobby. For those who'd like to get a taste of luxury without breaking the bank, it's possible to stop by the lobby's bar (The Terrace) for happy hour (3:30 to 6:00 pm) or to have afternoon tea at The Georgian (12:00 to 2:30 pm daily, $35 per person).

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Downtown Seattle has a lot to offer. It has many interesting buildings, especially in the old town and Pioneer Sq areas, many restaurants, shops, Pike Plane Market, etc. Overall, it is very lively and active, although there is the rather empty financial/business area that is very much like a smaller version of San Francisco's Financial District and, like the latter, it is devoted mostly to offices, financial institutions, etc., with few people, especially after 5 pm.