Day 10 | Seattle - I'm in love with Seattle
Today we have planned a walking tour of downtown Seattle. Rosie needed some walking shoes as she only has thongs or snow boots. But seriously who really needs an excuse to go shoe shopping.
Straight out of the Hotel the first department store we came to was Nordstroms (like the professor from Futurama). This chain is centred here in Seattle and the range of shoes and the accompanying service were fantastic. Everyone here seems to dress really well and it is hard not to feel like the Clampets on a visit.
Christine, our shoe lady was hyperactively bringing things out for Rosie to try them out and seemed genuinely excited as she tried each pair on. Meanwhile Angus sat wide-eyed at the busy goings on. Although we were getting great service it wasn't like there weren’t other customers. We left with a couple of pairs that may suit. (Might need to go back).
Then we dropped back to the hotel to drop the spare shoes off and get to the walk-tour rendezvous.
The walk down showed us a whole lot of restaurant options and other attractions that we almost saw last night but didn’t go that far. Out the front of the Seattle Art Museum there is a massive outline of a man hammering and this was where we me Ed, our guide. We then met our fellow walk-tour buddies Molly and Rebecca.
It was a really fun and informative two hour tour and Ed kept us moving and getting access to all sorts for Seattle treasure spots. Our favourites included:
- The Arctic Club, once a gentleman’s club from the Klondike gold rush days with the walrus motif frontage and the clubby interior, now a hotel and the amazing Dome Room.
- The Ranier Building, the 31 storey building with the base that looks like a giant beaver has been snacking.
- The Seattle Public Library, an 11 storey 2004 steel and diamond shaped glass polyhedron.
- The Historic District of lower 1st Avenue South, with all the character from the 1890’s.
Walking around Seattle the impression is very friendly. Whether it was because it was Sunday or the weather was good everyone seemed pretty cheerful. We also had the pleasure of getting to know Rebecca and Molly from Minneapolis, Mn. There’s been some extreme weather over that way this winter and it was interesting to hear how people with endurance cope with that.
The tour finished at the Zietgeist Coffee House. Ed had been feeding up attractions and walks to consider along the way and over coffee we were able to recap over a map. There are a lot of options. We thanked and said goodbye to Ed, it was a great tour.
Afterwards we were invited to join Rebecca and Molly for the Happy Hour at Lecosho. They were delightfully interesting company and time just flew by. They had dinner reservations elsewhere but we decided to stay for dinner at Lecosho as it was one of the Seattle Restaurant Week promotion restaurants where three courses are offered for $28 which is fantastic. The food was amazing and we had a thoroughly enjoyable day.
