Travel Guide: Seattle

My roommate, Rachel, and I had been looking forward to this trip for months. We had much to celebrate: I had just graduated and she was soon to be married. Our 10-day trip was the perfect amount of time to get a taste of the San Juan Islands, visit Seattle and take a 32-hour trip to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

We arrived at Sea-Tac Airport at 1:40 a.m. after spending six hours traveling, introducing ourselves to Fat Tire Amber Ale you can’t find in these parts and entertaining ourselves with our musical talents under the dome voice amplifier during our one-hour layover in Houston.
Here are the highlights of our trip.

Coffee and Salmon
Sounds like an awful combination, right? Right. But when you hear Seattle has a coffee shop on every corner, they are not exaggerating by much. And the salmon is world class.

Seattle is home to the original Starbucks, founded in 1971. If you are a fanatic, you can visit the first shop across from Pike Place Market, but don’t forget to ship your favorite relative that fresh salmon. Pike Place is known for the famous fish market, where workers put on a show and play catch with the fish when you buy them.

If you are a wanderer from the beaten path, aside from Starbucks, Tully’s Coffee and Seattle’s Best Coffee, there are a number of cozy coffee niches in and around the city. For seafood, Ivar’s is popular, but don’t be afraid to try a small, one-manned stand on the Puget Sound.

Vacation within a vacation
Just a short train ride away is the Canadian border, where Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia lie within arm’s reach. Just don’t forget your passport! The train ride along the coast is just shy of four hours, which put us in Canada for about 32 hours. Ambitious, we headed straight for the Vancouver Art Gallery, where Georgia O’Keeffe’s work, along with several Canadian artists, were on display.

The second day, we coaxed a cab driver into giving us a tour of Stanley Park, which has 1,000 acres of greenery right next to downtown. Forests, trails, gardens and beaches offer chances for picnics and all types of recreation.

We also inched across the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which was built in 1889 and spans 450 feet, 230 feet above the Capilano River. On the other side is the Treetops Adventure, where seven suspension bridges are layered climbing 100 feet above the evergreens.

Views from the top: Space Needle and Smith Tower
Not only a great reference point when driving around the city, the 605-foot Space Needle offers a 360-degree view of Seattle. Below the observation deck is a restaurant, which spins at one revolution per hour. Unfortunately, we missed this view because we weren’t downtown when the sky was clear, but we did see the New Year’s fireworks launched from the tower. The Space Needle, along with the Seattle Center Monorail that stretches from the Seattle Center to downtown, was built for the 1962 World’s Fair.

A true Seattleite recommended the Smith Tower as an alternative observation point to the Space Needle. The 35th floor allows views from all sides of the building.

Culture
The Hammering Man, a moving sculpture by Jonathon Borofsky, works hard outside the Seattle Art Museum (or SAM). I thought it looked familiar. That’s because we have one of our own in Gainesville, outside the Harn Museum of Art. The SAM’s permanent collection features Australian Aboriginal and Oceanic, African, American, Ancient Mediterranean and Islamic, and Asian Art as well as Textiles, Decorative Arts, and Modern Art.

The Olympic Sculpture Park, which opened to the public a year ago, was designed to restore a former industrial site with brownfield redevelopment, salmon habitat restoration and native plantings. It is an outdoor, 2,200-foot Z-shaped path that sits next to the Puget Sound.

If you enojy live performances, the best place to look is Mercer Street. The Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle Opera can be found at the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. At the 5th Avenue Theater we saw “Jersey Boys,” a musical about the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

Nature
A day without rain should be spent outdoors. Green Lake is a beautifully lush 323-acre park in the middle of an urban neighborhood north of Seattle. We spent two hours walking around the 2.8-mile path, among dog-walkers, roller bladers, cyclists and runners, appreciating the sun.

On a clear day, it is said that Mount Rainier can be seen for 100 miles in any direction. Part of the Cascade Mountains, the summit is about 14,000 feet. Since a couple of the entrances were closed while we were visiting, we pretended to be in the great outdoors at R.E.I., Recreational Equipment, Inc. The flagship store is complete with a 65-foot climbing wall and a mountain bike test trail.

The San Juan Islands
This archipelago is made up of 172 named islands, of which three cater to visitors: Lopez, Orcas and San Juan. I studied abroad in 2006, and my travel buddy grew up on Orcas Island, where I stayed for two days. Ferry or plane will get you there and though I only did the first, it was well worth the travel time for the views of other islands. Mount Constitution stands 2,409 feet high and is part of Moran State Park, which has 30 miles of trails, lakes and waterfalls for mountain biking, hiking, camping, horseback riding and kayaking. Art galleries are abundant and a farmers’ market sets up every Saturday from May to September.