After my magical trip to Alaska, I had the privilege of staying in Seattle for three days. I didn’t know what to expect out of this city. When someone said “Seattle,” the first things that came to mind were Starbucks and rain (which are both heavily prominent in the coffee shop’s birthplace).
Fortunately, the rain didn’t make an appearance for the beautiful days I got to spend in Seattle. Going into the month of July, the Washingtonian city is a lush, cool landscape, the docks and portside shops bustling with crowds rivaling Times Square’s. The sun doesn’t set until 9 p.m., giving Seattle a golden, lively vitality until late at night. But what is there to do in Seattle?
1. Visit Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a bustling section of Seattle that overlooks the Elliot Bay waterfront and boasts the most variety and crowds the city has to offer. With gems such as the first Starbucks (people line up down the block to get a look inside) and the Gum Wall, a narrow brick alleyway decorated with posters and hundreds of thousands of people’s chewed gum, Pike Place Market is not your ordinary street fair. Vendors sell everything from Mount Rainier’s pink, ripe cherries to fresh lavender to gourmet pickles to mountains of fresh-caught fish that flies through the air when they call your order. Pike Place Market also boasts a wide selection of handcrafted art and homemade oils and therapies. While you’re there, stop in to one of the many specialty restaurants for chowder and seafood or vintage bookstores for some quiet. Carve out a good chunk of your day to explore this Seattle treasure.
2. Olympic Sculpture Park
If you keep walking past Pike Place Market and down the beautiful waterfront for a few miles, you’ll come to the Olympic Sculpture Park, a nine-acre art installation that lets you walk, bike and relax among the huge, representational art. It’s a wonderful place to relax outside on a sunny day, admire the art, or watch the sunset over the water.
3. Space Needle
The best place to see the whole city is, of course, from Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. Once a vision for the future at the 1962 World’s Fair, the Space Needle grants a 360 degree view of the city for anyone brave enough to take the 40-second elevator ride to the top. The best time to go is sunset, when the tip of Mount Rainier shines gold behind the city.
4. Chihuly Glass Garden
Right below the Space Needle is the Chihuly Glass Garden, an art exhibition featuring the stunning glasswork of Dale Chihuly. Featuring both a small museum, a hallway of chandeliers and a colorful, surreal garden that reflects the Space Needle on every shining surface, the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit is a gorgeous stop you don’t want to pass by.
5. Seattle Center
The Seattle Center is a park home to many forms of art and entertainment in Seattle. It’s not only a park filled with fields, musical water fountains and playgrounds, but also provides the grounds for theater, art, the Space Needle site, the Key Arena (home to the WNBA’s Seattle Storm) and various museums.
6. EMP
The Experience Music Project Museum is a museum dedicated to contemporary art and popular culture. This is definitely not your boring, stuffy art museum. The EMP not only dedicates an entire floor to test recording studios for drums, guitar, bass, piano and voice, but also features an exhibitional history of the band Nirvana (with Kurt Cobain’s first smashed guitar and Dave Grohl’s ripped shirt on display) and exhibits about "Star Trek" and how fantasy realms are created. This museum is dedicated to the edgy, cool, weird side of pop culture. And right outside? A playground built for both children and adults to traverse. Truly unique, and truly Seattle.
