Late to bed last night and early to rise this morning to make the most of the complimentary hot buffet breakfast one last time before our shuttle back to the airport. In the end we were in a bit of a rush and left behind the prized framed Iditarod poster Sam had won at the meet-and-greet nearly two weeks ago. However the shuttle driver returned to the hotel to pick it up, earning himself a larger tip when he dropped it back to us.
For the first flight in a while we actually had seats allocated next to each other, which was nice. They were even on the right side of the plane - which in this case was the left side - to enable us to get a view of the Alaskan Mountains during the flight.
With the flying time and the change of time zones it was about 3:00pm by the time we made it to balmy Seattle. I had looked up Google Maps last night and had a pretty good idea of where our motel was in relation to the famous Space Needle, but I didn't have a good idea of how to get there from the airport. No problem, we just had to find the Tourist Information Office. This is where I began to suspect Seattle wasn't too interested in helping visitors. We eventually found how to get to the Tourist Information Office - it just involved leaving the airport, going through the multilevel car park, past the train station, across the pedestrian overpass, down the elevator, around the corner and up the hill to the back of the airport motels. Easy, although a few layers of clothes had to be removed in the +16°C heatwave. (Well, it's a heat wave when you have just spent the last three days in Nome where the daily maximum ranged from -15°C to -10°C!). At least we were able to get information about trains to Vancouver and ferries to Vancouver Island while we were there.
That sorted we caught the train into the city and transferred onto the monorail for the short ride to the Space Needle. From there it was only a 5-10 minute walk to our motel. Once in our room we noticed that outside our window we had a fairly noisy street of traffic and outside our door we had an elevator. Given that we were fairly tired after an abbreviated night's sleep last night, this prompted Laura to go back to reception and ask if there was a quieter room - and lo and behold we found ourselves given a free upgrade to one of the four suites on the top floor, with a view of the Space Needle. Good move Laura! We celebrated by going out and finding a supermarket were we could buy some suitable food for our suite's microwave so we could eat in.
After breakfast next morning we walked down to the water front and booked our passage on tomorrow morning's ferry to Vancouver Island. With those formalities completed we continued along the water front and up to the famous Pike Place Markets.
Laura likes exploring markets at any time and these are a particularly fine example of the genre. There were lots of interesting crafts, food and buskers to admire, sample and watch (respectively). In the end we didn't actually buy any of the crafts but we did sample some of the foods and watch some of the buskers.
After dragging ourselves away we went in search of the downtown tourist office, but in keeping with our airport experience, found that it was closed on Saturdays. No matter, in the process we stumbled across the St Patrick's Day Parade.
This presented an interesting mix of costumes, bands, Irish dancers and dogs (e.g Irish Setters, Irish Wolfhounds and Maltese Terriers with green hats strapped to their backs). Exactly what hordes of children on unicycles had to do with the local Gaelic heritage I'm still not quite sure, but they were very skilful.
We continued on to the Sky View Observatory, on the 73rd floor of the Columbia Centre. Sam had given us a tip that it was cheaper than the Space Needle, and being much higher, afforded a better view of Seattle and its surroundings. And so it proved to be, especially with a 2 for 1 voucher from a local attractions discount booklet. As well as the good view there were a number of interesting displays about the history and geography of the region, so it was well worth the visit.
Afterwards we indulged ourselves in a rather uncharacteristically late lunch before meandering back all the way to our hotel, revisiting the scene of last night's dinner purchases for another selection of microwavable comestibles. We'd done a lot of walking today so were content with a quiet night in after our all too cursory exploration of Seattle, especially as the long forecast rain had set in for the evening*.
Tomorrow we depart the USA, bound for Canada as boat people!
* We later learnt that by the 28th of March Seattle had broken a 64 year old record for most rain in a calendar month, so we were actually pretty lucky the rain held off so long.
 |
| A view of the Alaskan Mountains |
With the flying time and the change of time zones it was about 3:00pm by the time we made it to balmy Seattle. I had looked up Google Maps last night and had a pretty good idea of where our motel was in relation to the famous Space Needle, but I didn't have a good idea of how to get there from the airport. No problem, we just had to find the Tourist Information Office. This is where I began to suspect Seattle wasn't too interested in helping visitors. We eventually found how to get to the Tourist Information Office - it just involved leaving the airport, going through the multilevel car park, past the train station, across the pedestrian overpass, down the elevator, around the corner and up the hill to the back of the airport motels. Easy, although a few layers of clothes had to be removed in the +16°C heatwave. (Well, it's a heat wave when you have just spent the last three days in Nome where the daily maximum ranged from -15°C to -10°C!). At least we were able to get information about trains to Vancouver and ferries to Vancouver Island while we were there.
That sorted we caught the train into the city and transferred onto the monorail for the short ride to the Space Needle. From there it was only a 5-10 minute walk to our motel. Once in our room we noticed that outside our window we had a fairly noisy street of traffic and outside our door we had an elevator. Given that we were fairly tired after an abbreviated night's sleep last night, this prompted Laura to go back to reception and ask if there was a quieter room - and lo and behold we found ourselves given a free upgrade to one of the four suites on the top floor, with a view of the Space Needle. Good move Laura! We celebrated by going out and finding a supermarket were we could buy some suitable food for our suite's microwave so we could eat in.
After breakfast next morning we walked down to the water front and booked our passage on tomorrow morning's ferry to Vancouver Island. With those formalities completed we continued along the water front and up to the famous Pike Place Markets.
 |
| Buskers in action at Pike Place Markets |
After dragging ourselves away we went in search of the downtown tourist office, but in keeping with our airport experience, found that it was closed on Saturdays. No matter, in the process we stumbled across the St Patrick's Day Parade.
 |
| An Irish Dog (?!) |
 | |
| The Space Needle |
Afterwards we indulged ourselves in a rather uncharacteristically late lunch before meandering back all the way to our hotel, revisiting the scene of last night's dinner purchases for another selection of microwavable comestibles. We'd done a lot of walking today so were content with a quiet night in after our all too cursory exploration of Seattle, especially as the long forecast rain had set in for the evening*.
Tomorrow we depart the USA, bound for Canada as boat people!
* We later learnt that by the 28th of March Seattle had broken a 64 year old record for most rain in a calendar month, so we were actually pretty lucky the rain held off so long.
No comments:
Post a Comment