Road Trip Seattle to San Francisco – Day 4 – Chihuly Glass, Columbia Bldg, Bainbridge Is & Ghosts

[anji]

Road Trip Seattle to San Francisco – Day 4 – Chihuly Gardens & Glass, Columbia Tower, Bainbridge Island and Ghost Walk

Slight lie in today and breakfast 8.30am. First visit of the day was to the wonderful Chihuly Gardens and Glass exhibition at the Seattle Centre. Walked the 5 minutes up the now very familiar road!

This was one of the options available on the City Pass and I’m so glad we chose it. The colours and imagination shown in the glass exhibits was staggering and so beautiful. There were also glass exhibits within the gardens and I think it would have been lovely to go again at night when they are lit up.

We saw a humming bird – my favourite bird – while we were having coffee in the gardens. This turned out to be the only one we saw on our whole trip so we were lucky. I thought there would be a lot more as we went further south as we had seen them on our previous trip – San Francisco southwards.

From here we took the monorail to the Westlake Centre and then walked the few blocks to the Columbia Centre. The tower here is 73 floors to the observatory – and absolutely free! It’s far less popular than the space needle and not at all crowded as I don’t think it’s widely known to be accessible. We looked at the amazing views, including the Space Needle below us and out towards Puget Sound.

Descending to floor 40 we went to the highest Starbucks in USA. There is another near Chicago that the staff said is on top of a mountain, so they count Seattle as being the actual highest!

This afternoon we were going to visit the neighbouring Bainbridge Island. We walked to Pier 52 and caught the 1.10pm ferry. This was 35 minutes on a very big car ferry and only cost $8.50 return. The crossing was smooth but the clouds were gathering. There were beautiful houses on the shoreline of the island. We walked from the quay up into the town. It’s very geared to the boat tourists on the main street with an eclectic mix of shops – crafty shops, a shop just for dogs, ethnic clothes, jewellery, a great record shop etc.

We got to the small park at the top when the heavens opened. Luckily the Bainbridge Bakery was right there so we escaped the rain. This was a lovely place and popular with the locals too. By the time we’d done the rain had stopped. We walked back down towards the quay and stopped at More Creamery for an ice cream – which of course was huge just for a single scoop.

After catching the ferry back to Seattle we walked back to Pike Place for another quick look round. We visited the Beecher’s handmade cheese shop which has seen a gigantic upsurge in business since being endorsed by Oprah as her favourite cheese maker. Big line of people but it moved quickly and you could watch the cheese being churned. The samples were lovely but we didn’t buy any.

We caught the monorail back for a rest before heading out again. We thought we had more time than we actually had and suddenly found ourselves running late for our Spooked In Seattle ghost walk. We caught the monorail and legged it from the Westlake Centre to Pioneer Square, arriving with 5 minutes to spare!

There were around 20 people on the tour and Ross was the guide and also founder of the company and a true ghost hunter. The tour wasn’t particularly scary but lots of fun. He took us into a couple of underground areas, Merchants (oldest restaurant in Seattle), told us lots of tales while walking around the area and ended up back in the Spooked In Seattle building with it’s own underground – in darkness with small torches! – and death museum. We’ve done a fair number of these tours over the years and this was a good one!

By this time it was 10.00pm and we were hungry. We decided to head back to the hotel area. We’d done a lot of walking today so took the light rail from Pioneer Square to the Westlake Centre. The tunnels are huge with buses in them as well as the trains. Then it was the monorail again – our last journey  - and we just got into Zeeks Pizza in Tilikum Place at 10.20 before they stopped taking orders.

This was our last day in Seattle. I’d love to visit again as I know there was a lot more to see and do, especially in the northern surrounding Islands and up the Puget Sound. Orca watching would definitely be on the list.

Tomorrow was the start of the road trip – Portland next, home of the weird! Goodnight Seattle!

Index http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=966569

[Melbatb]

Chiluly was my favourite place in Seattle!

Bainbridge sounds like a lovely side trip!

Thanks for sharing!

[Disney Wishing]

Another great sounding day. I always love Chihuly's work and have been lucky to see it in a few different places.

[Cannavar]

Thanks for the tip about Columbia place...might add that to our trip...also an excuse for a Starbucks to!

[Guest]

Have a friend that lives north of Seattle and loves the Chihuly Gardens & Glass. Shes always going there. Great view from the Columbia Centre. I'm waiting for Smith Tower to re-open (next year). It's such a beautiful art deco building.
One place to put on your list for next visit to Seattle is Snoqualmie Falls. They are so beautiful.

[anji]

We did think about Snoqualmie as we're Twin Peaks fans too but it was too out of the way and we wanted to get to Portland as quickly as possible. Next time!

[KarenG]

It's been absolutely fantastic reading all about your trip. You've helped me a lot with my short list!

[paw]

We went to Seattle, the end of our San Diego to Seattle trip, and absolutely loved it. We did all the things you did but over three days and luckily Bainbridge Island was hot and sunny all afternoon. There were only about 4 people on the observation floor of Columbia Tower but unfortunately Starbucks was closed as it was a Sunday. Can't wait to go back.

[anji]

Glad you enjoyed reading! Was first time I'd tried to do a trip report. Would love to do it all again and go down the coast road this time