The week before Christmas, Dave and I took a quick weekend trip to Seattle - (or what can also be called another Stephenless trip). I needed to take a short trip to keep my medallion level, Dave has been working long hours and needs a break - and since I've never been to Seattle and the price was right, we thought, why not fly up on Friday night spend the weekend and come back on Monday afternoon. We got a room just 2 blocks from the Space Needle and this was the night time view from our room.
The weather was great the whole weekend.
Early Saturday morning after breakfast, we walked the 2 blocks over to the monorail station and rode the train downtown. The monorail was built in 1962 for the World's Fair and only has two stops, one at each end. It is very clean and well maintained. We met a couple that moved from Florida to Seattle because after vacationing in Seattle they loved the area so much they moved there to retire. They gave us several great tips. One was on your first monorail ride, sit up front with the conductor.
We did!! And this is the view as you are traveling at a high speed into the city. The city is composed of lots of high rises and very closely built together and the monorail runs between everything. It was lots of fun. The train stop is inside a large mall downtown. Very convenient.
We had signed up for a "Taste of Seattle" tour of Pike Place Market. This was a GREAT tour and if you ever go to Seattle, we recommend you take the tour BEFORE you try to shop the marketplace. We were given a brief history of the marketplace, and lots of background on shops and experienced bites and sips from many of the market's vendors, (including crab cakes, chowder, cheese, salmon, tea, chocolates, coffees, macaroni & cheese, fruits, etc.)
Every stop we made at the market, the vendors were friendly and told us stories about their shop and were eager to share their samples with us. The sights were very delightful to the eyes, noses, and taste buds.
We saw Christmas wreaths that were very different from what we would see in Salt Lake, very flowerful, lovely to behold. The flower prices were very cheap - after all, this is where the growers sell directly to the public at the marketplace, (no middleman to mark up the price!).
Of course Dave's favorite stands were the fish stands. I had seen the shows about the flying fish, but to see it in person was great. These vendors work so fast getting the orders out, and once again the food is so fresh and the prices are great. Dave of course had to have his oyster shooter right there on the spot. His comment - DELISH !!
I loved the pepper ornamental, (and edible) wreaths. We purchased a small hanging pepper display for our kitchen that has garlic, purple statis and other dried flowers in it. Now the green peppers are all turning red and it is very vibrant. Too bad we didn't have room to bring back a large wreath. We did pick up several holiday gifts during this trip for friends and family.
And of course the Christmas carolers was delightful to watch and listen to. Seattle was fun. And the best part was, even though we walked all day, we didn't get rained on once. Our tour was 2 hours long and afterwards we had a good idea where to eat lunch and where to do our shopping. The web site for the company is:
www.SavorSeattleTours.com They have several types of tours, if you take this tour, take the morning tour - then your can pick where to do lunch afterwards. Plus you give you a card good for 10-15% off purchases at vendors for the next 7 days.!! Good deal. We used our card several times on Saturday and again on Monday.
On Sunday morning it was lightly raining, we walked over to McDonald's to grab a quick breakfast then back to the hotel to meet up with our tour guide. We had a tour of the Seattle area wineries, Snoqualmie Falls, and a chocolate candy factory. The first stop was Chateau St. Michelle. A lovely winery. The grapes for all the wineries are all grown on eastern Washington and then bottled in the Western plants. The inside of the wineries were lovely and very majestic.
Next we visited Novelty Hill / Januk, (this winery was started by one of the St. Michelle's head winemakers who left to venture out on his own). It was very modernistic. Very update and different from the traditional wineries most people are used to seeing.
Our last stop was to Columbia Winery, which was started by three Washington University professors who used to have a wine tasting club and decided to band together buy a winery and produce their own wines. This was also a very lovely and traditional style winery. We ate our lunch here and enjoyed the chance to relax a little.
Then on to Snoqualmie Falls. Unfortunately the trip north took us through some more rain, and by the time we reached the area where the falls are located, the fog was so heavy that we could NOT see the falls. We could hear them, but couldn't see anything. So on to Boehm's Chocolate Factory. A lovely old hand dipping factory. We learned how chocolate is hand dipped and also molded. Purchased a couple boxes of hand dipped chocolates for gifts then started the trip back to our hotel. Our tour was 6 hours, and we had reservations at the Space Needle that evening for dinner.
Monday we had 1/2 day to kill before catching our plane, so Dave and I took the monorail back downtown and strolled through the marketplace again shopping and eating. Enjoying the sights, smells, sounds, and wishing I had an empty suitcase to bring home a large amount of purchases. If I lived in Seattle I would be shopping for fresh produce at the market every week.
We enjoyed our trip. And no, Stephen, we did not miss not having you with us, (gosh did I just say that out loud - sorry Stephen! ).
