DAY ONE
09.00: Start the day with breakfast in Fairmont Olympic Hotel’s elegant dining room, The Georgian Restaurant. It reopens in June after a six-month renovation to restore its original 1924 features – including grand chandeliers, period windows and rich American oak fittings – to their former glory, following a refurb of the hotel’s 450 rooms and suites in 2016. The site itself has a storied history too, once used as Washington’s first university and later a vaudeville theatre, before Seattle’s first landmark hotel was built here in 1924.
10.30: If you do only one thing in Seattle, it should be the Space Needle. Built in 1962 when the World’s Fair came to town, it’s an icon of mid-century America, rising 184m and offering sweeping views of Puget Sound, the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges, and downtown Seattle. A $100 million renovation in 2017 has transformed the experience: the observation deck now has tilting glass walls and clear benches that lean back over the city for the ultimate Seattle selfie. There’s also a new revolving glass floor two storeys below, so visitors can look down over the ground far beneath them, and a new wine bar, cafe and accessible lifts.
11.30: Once you’ve made it to the Space Needle, at the heart of the Seattle Center campus, you don’t have to travel much further, as there are several top tourist attractions nearby, many of which are included in the Seattle CityPass (£79.65 for adults, £63.56 for children). Top of the list is Chihuly Garden and Glass, where Tacoma-born artist
GETTING THERE
Icelandair flies up to 13 times a week from Gatwick to Seattle, via Reykjavik, from £216 in economy and £1,185 in Saga Premium. The flight time is 12 hours 50 minutes westbound, and 11 hours 55 minutes eastbound, and passengers can stop over in Iceland at no extra cost.
icelandair.com
80 30 JANUARY 2020 top tip
For a wealth of resources on selling Seattle as a cruise destination, go to
seattlecruisealaska.co.uk
Dale Chihuly displays the best of his trademark style. Think twisted shapes of brightly coloured blown glass arranged in everything from a 15ft-high tower inspired by the sea life in Puget Sound – complete with golden starfish and sea anemones – to a dazzling overhead display in the on-site greenhouse. It’s the kind of art that will appeal to all tastes and ages, and is not to be missed.
13.00: Stop for lunch at Chihuly Garden and Glass’s Collections Cafe, where salads and sandwiches cost $17 and up. As well as offering garden views, it’s home to Chihuly’s weird and wonderful collections, from toy soldiers and cars to rare Christmas ornaments.
14.00: Feeling refreshed? Carry on to MoPop, the Museum of Pop Culture, which greets guests with an impressive tower of electric guitars, and celebrates everything about the here and now. You’ll find exhibitions on horror movies, sci fi, computer games and fantasy, as well as music acts ranging from Pearl Jam to Prince, and a new gallery examining the art of the tattoo. Music fans can pick up t-shirts from their favourite bands at the museum shop.
16.00: Having absorbed all there is to know about modern-day Seattle, take a short cab ride to join Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour, which explores streets preserved below the city when it was rebuilt after an 1889 fire. Starting in Doc Maynard’s Public House, visitors stroll through pretty Pioneer Square, then delve under the surface to hear stories about the city’s murky past. The 75-minute guided tour runs hourly, from $22.
20.00: Dine downtown at Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, but don’t let
its unassuming air and casually dressed staff fool you – this place takes its wine very seriously indeed. Not only does it display the goods in a fabulous rack stretching the full two-storey height of the restaurant, but when you ask for the wine list, you’ll get what can only be called an entire book – luckily, the staff are on hand to make recommendations so you don’t have to read every set of tasting notes. The food is similarly unpretentious, with burgers, pizza and pasta including a tempting lobster mac and cheese.
DAY two
09.00: Forget breakfast and head straight to Pike Place Market – you’ll want to arrive hungry with so much food to try. If you must start with a caffeine fix, skip the queue at the ‘original’ Starbucks (the first branch to open in 1971, although in fact, it only relocated here in 1977) and try the smooth blends at Ghost Alley Espresso. Next, head upstairs to the Daily
travelweekly.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112
