Seattle for a couple of days. What to see?

After yesterdays blizzard over the Blewett Pass, I hitched a ride to Seattle. I could perhaps stay a couple of days. What should I try and see whilst here? Art Galleries would be good.

Also v interested. Got a conference in a couple of weeks.
Anyone else at sqlpass?

Mods, can you post this on the other side?

Seattle’s great – a really friendly place.

If you’ve not done it already, it’s worth the obvious monorail trip to the Seattle Centre – pretty cool if you head up the Needle before dusk and watch the lights come on in the city with Rainier in the background.

Have a good wander round Pike Place Market (including breakfast at Lowells), have a tasting at Pike Brewery, and the Seattle underground tour[/url] is good for some history with laughs too.

And take plenty of warm clothing!

Boeing factory tour innit. Buses pick you up from downtown. Probably easier than riding out trying to get on a tour out there.

The needle, music museum next to the needle, REI, fish market bit, Bruce Lee’s grave….

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/tours/index.html

Simply awesome place. I once had a solo guided tour round the whole factory floor on a trip out there, with their head of security. On a full on Austin Powers golf cart! 🙂 Got to go inside a half built 74 and the first 78, way before it came off the line.

However, the factory is an amazing place to see, so I reckon a tour would be well worth it!

Also – Go to Mukilteo Sound. Go to Ivar’s. Eat. Be happy.

I just checked out the Museum of Flight. Looks good, I passed the Boeing plant on the train, looks good too. The Seattle Art Museum is now on my list. Coffee is pretty good here, a lot better than the Glentress cafe dishwater.

Wander up Queen Anne hill for a coffee whilst enjoying the views. There a music museum at the space needle (go up there as well) which is primarily about Jimi Hendrix. There’s some great restaurants at reasonable cost and some really good happy hour deals too…

Eat at Ivars on the waterfront, for posher seafood, or The Crab Pot for ridiculous quantities on the seafood platter.

A trip across to Bainbridge Island gives great views of the city and often Mt Rainier, is nice to visit, and there’s a fantastic bikeshop and cycling museum just off the ferry. Classic Cycle[/url]

I just back from a visit to the Future of Flight and factory tour of Boeing. Top recommendation guys. Talk about a man cave?!

Check out the I5 colonnade trails… The most compact trail centre you’ve ever seen (and an excellent use of inner city wasteland).

The Seattle library has great architecture, the Seattle Art Museum (and Seattle Asian Art Museum) are pretty good too. Try to have breakfast downtown at Lolas (it’s near the Westin), you can get the usual American stuff but they have some slightly different stuff which is well worth it (belly pork and octopus with eggs is fantastic for breakfast believe it or not). For lunch, the market grill at Pike Place is really nice, the guy who runs it is really chatty. There’s also Matts at the market for lunch or dinner, excellent Pacific NW food.

I popped by the library on the way home, what a fantastic building. I checked out SAM yesterday, great museum. Back to Portland tomorrow.

If you have access to a car and bike you absolutely have to go to Duthie Hill park which is 30mins outside Seattle. I used to live in Seattle and had as much fun there as I did whenever I went up to Whistler and I still miss it now even though I live in the Alps

2nd Steve, Duthie Hill is excellent. Veloce Velo in Issaquah do demo Turners, park up near the I90 and ride the Grand Ridge trail over to Duthie and make a day of it.

As you say the Boeing tour in Everett is well worth it, as part of their supply chain we had the shop floor tour, engineering and size of the things awesome.

Big statue of Lenin? http://fremont.com/about/statuelenin-html/

Sub Pop office…

Keep going down there and there’s a really nice brewery. Or just find a bar around there that serves their beer to save the walk. There’s also a decent bike shop (unlike the **** one near Pike Place where they follow you around in case you try to steal one of their gas-pipe, 80kg, NOS European steel frames).