Touristing in Seattle

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Being a tourist in your own town can be such fun!

When Sheri and I first moved to Seattle in 1979 we did just about all the tourist attractions there were to do. That list included a tour of the Underground of Seattle. Though we were not sorry we took the tour, we were not terribly impressed with it. My friend Lynne said she had read that the tour has been tremendously improved and has a lot more to it. So -- we put this on our list for something we wanted to do in Seattle.

Though we were not sorry we took the tour, we were not terribly impressed with it. Wait -- did I already say that? No -- that was 35 years ago, this is now, but with the same semtiment!

 

Tour starts at Doc Maynard's bar. There is a lot of history here about the bar itself. We recall hearing (something) about that in the years past, this year there was no mention.

 

Our animated and entertaining guide, Dean.

Some of the lectures about all the history of Seattle were interesting, but were long and rather repetitive.

 

Debris decades past

 

Nothing is planted here - old tools and implement left long ago

 

Wooden water pipes -- everything was made of wood which contributed to the great "glue" fire that destroyed Seattle in 1889.

We were not really "underground", just under the sidewalks of Seattle. And much of the display we remembered from the past were no longer there -- bay windows set authentically as they would have looked or a hotel, a bar, a house of ill repute. Now there was simply a long boardwalk along the walls of a basement.

 

Decorative...

 

Functional...

 

Many sidewalks in town have these glass "bricks" that we all walk across.

 

These are those glass bricks viewed from underneath -- they allowed light into the areas below.

After our hour and a half tour, we were ready for lunch and our next adventure. We had a delightful sandwich and Borscht soup at Delicatus, a place that Lynne had on her list of places to try. A very popular, busy place with great food.

Then it was a walk up to Capital Hill for a visit the Starbucks Roastery where we would have our tea and (decadent) crumpet.

 

Lots of copper in this place

 

Lots of people in this place

 

Lots of bags of coffee beans in this place

 

Lots of good crumpet choices in this place, and tea served elegantly (for a coffee place)

This is the one and only Starbucks Roaster in the ... world actually ... and will remain the only one as I understand. It is a beautiful place and nice ambiance as well as good tea, coffee and food choices. Lynne and I sat by the fireplace on this somewhat blustery and chilly afternoon and had a grand time.

Ending our tour for the day we walked to our respective bus stops -- Lynne would get to her home in about 10 minutes, I would get to mine in about an hour and a half.

 

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