Sensational Seattle

So much to discover in the trend-setting Emerald City

SLIDE SHOW

• The Emerald City

Surrounded by water and
mountains, Seattle’s a
trend-setting, high tech,
artsty city that glows year-
round.

Dan Callister / Getty Images

The Seattle skyline.
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 Charleston: Southern Comforts
Rio de Janeiro: Marvelous City
San Antonio: Jewel of Texas
Santa Fe: High Culture
St. Louis: Gateway City
Toronto: An Urban Gem
Memphis: Soul City
San Diego: Fun in the Sun
Seattle: The Emerald City
Las Vegas: Sizzling Sin City
Boston: Booming 'Beantown'
Philly: City of Brotherly Love
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By Pauline Frommer
Special to MSNBC.com
Updated: 3:24 p.m. CT Sept 25, 2006

If cities had astrological signs, Seattle would be a Gemini. It’s lively,

intelligent, dual-natured, and subject the graces and foibles of youth. It’s got
the highest percentage of college graduates of any major U.S. city, the highest
per capita rate of music and dance attendance, and an alarmingly high rate of
homeless kids on the streets. It’s a city of bookworms, computer geeks,
entrepreneurs, and anarchists. It sets musical trends the world follows, and it
designs computer operating systems the world’s stuck with. It holes up on
dreary days in artisanal coffee houses drinking way too much caffeine, and it
rampages in the streets with anti-globalization fervor whenever the World
Trade Organization comes to town. It rains half of the time (not that it carries
an umbrella), but it likes to call itself The Emerald City, highlighting the
brilliant hues its evergreens take in direct sunlight. Like a Gemini, Seattle is
restless, clever, charming and great company. With just 24 hours, you haven’t
got a prayer of truly getting to know it. But with the following itinerary, you
can have a truly memorable fling:
8 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.: Start your day with fresh fruit and a big, fat cheese blintz
at Crave, a new-school neighborhood diner in the ultra-hip Capitol Hill
restaurant district. Crave makes just about everything made from scratch,
using organic, free-range and locally-grown ingredients as much as possible.
If the blintzes don’t call you, perhaps the Crave Omelet will. It’s loaded with
shiitake mushrooms, goat cheese, rosemary and duck confit. Or perhaps
you’ll hold out for the biscuits-and-gravy, made with crispy fresh-baked
biscuits, creamy-thick gravy and crumbled Italian chicken sausage.
9:30 a.m. – noon: Wander about Pike Place Market. It’s packed like a
sardine can with tourists, it smells like fish, and no visit to Seattle would be
complete without a visit. The nation’s oldest continuously operating farmers
market, it’s a bustling Northwest bazaar of seafood and produce, where fruits
and vegetables are stacked in precarious pyramids, and fish mongers in rubber
boots send tuna hurling through the air like silvery missiles. It occupies a
multi-level series of arcades filling nine prime downtown acres, and if you’re
not in the market for octopus or persimmons, the place is loaded with gift and
curio shops. When you’re ready for a pick-me-up, pop into the Starbucks next
door – the world’s very first Starbucks. (Check out the original Starbucks’
mermaid, a saucier version of her more conservative, corporate sister logo.)
Story continues below ↓

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A SUBTERRANEAN MORNING ALTERNATIVE

Head to Pioneer Square, then below it and back in time. In the rebuilding
effort that followed a devastating downtown fire in 1899, several blocks of
old Seattle ended up entombed underground. You can still see some of them
today on Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour. A guide leads you on a 90-
minute tour of old downtown, regaling you with humorous stories of Seattle’s
wild early days. The tour winds up in a literal Rogues’ Gallery, where
portraits of colorful characters from Seattle’s pioneer-era past hang.

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Noon – 2 p.m. Drop your coat on a sculpted iron fishhook,

take a seat in the breezy dining room beneath octopus
tentacle lighting, and watch the hubbub of Pike’s Place Market
through the big plate glass window at Etta’s Seafood. This
place helped pioneer the Pacific Northwest –Asian fusion
thing. You might find yourself here starting off with a sashimi
salad or a scallion pancake with wasabi, followed by a lobster
Rueben or a fried oyster po-boy. Etta’s does comfort food,
Seattle style.
2 p.m – 5 p.m. Hop into the elevator at Seattle’s iconic 605-
foot Space Needle, and take rocket-ship ride up to the
slowly-rotating, flying saucer -like Observation Deck. From
there Seattle is a toy town, with miniature skyscrapers, wind-
up ferries criss-crossing Puget Sound, and itty-bitty
floatplanes buzzing around below. In contrast, Mount Rainer
and the surrounding Cascade and Olympic ranges lose none
of their grandeur. When you get back to earth, explore The
Experience Music Project at the foot of the Space Needle.
The glossy curves of the electric guitar were clearly on famed
architect Frank Gehry’s mind when he designed this avant-
garde museum, which started out as a memorial to Seattle
native Jimi Hendrix and turned into a celebration of rock ‘n
roll in general and Pacific Northwest rock in particular. In the
interactive Sound Lab, you can put aside you air guitar and
experiment with the real thing, as well as drums, keyboards,
and DJ turntables. In another room, you stand on stage while
10,000 adoring virtual fans scream for more. Throw your
arms in the air and say, Thhh-ANK You-oooooooo!
AFTERNOON ALTERNATIVE

Head over to Lake Union, one of the loveliest parts of Seattle,

and take in the Center for Wooden Boats. Most of this
museum sits either in dry dock or tied up in slips. Inspect the
fleet, then sail or row off in one of the exhibits (but call ahead
and arrange a boating skills checkout, which takes about 20
minutes).
6 p.m – 8 p.m.: Make reservations at Campagne, and
enjoy a good glass of wine and some exquisitely prepared
French bistro-style fare with subtle Northwest twists. If the
main room feels too formal and romantic for you, skip the
resos and grab a wooden banquette downstairs to Campagn
Café. Upstairs or down, you might find yourself starting with
the pate de campagne (a union of chicken and goose liver
that simultaneously melts and blooms on your palate), or the
escargot de bourgogne (roasted in pseudo-parsley pesto with
shallots and garlic).
8 p.m. – 10 p.m: Put on your dancing shoes, hit the
fabulous Century Ballroom and dance like there’s no
tomorrow. You might arrive on an evening devoted to the
tango, or to swing, or to the waltz, or to salsa, or maybe the
lindy hop. Whenever you get there, the scene will be cordial,
gilded, airy, all-ages, and very, very civilized. Arrive before 9
p.m. and you can get take a half hour dance lessons, should
you need one.
10 p.m. on … Head to the Crocodile Café and check out
whatever up-and-coming local or national music act is
onstage. In the early 1990s, before Grunge broke out of
Seattle and swept the nation, The Croc played nursemaid to
just about every soon-to-be-big Seattle band there was.
Then, it was a dive venue, where countless kids in corduroy
and plaid slam-danced themselves silly. Now it’s a historic
landmark of mythic proportions. It’s a bar and restaurant too.
And, you’ll be glad to know, it’s still kind of a dive.

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Pauline Frommer is the creator of the new Pauline Frommer
guides in bookstores now.