Tourist Sights and Attractions in Seattle, Washington

I had covered Seattle on land, water and the air. So, what was left to go beneath Seattle and explore its underground. So, i signed up for the underground tour of Seattle offered near the Pioneer Square. I couldn’t find much information about the contents of this tour online and one of my colleagues had gone for this a few months back and termed it “boring”, but this was anything but boring, it was awesome, that is, if you are interested in trivia, history and things out of the ordinary. In fact, not many living in Seattle knew that there practically existed/exists a city beneath the streets of Seattle. It was cool to be actually standing under a sidewalk (2nd picture below) and hear the people on the roads above.

The tour might not be very appropriate for kids considering that 90% of the history of the place revolved around the practice of prostitution and the tour guide mentions the details of the trade at the drop of a hat. But, considering the average American kid’s upbringing, this may be a subject in their 1st or 2nd grade and shouldn’t be bothering them.

The tour costs 15 USD, a bit high in my opinion, but i wouldn’t complain as i found the information shared by our tour guide worth the money. Yeah, i could have got the same info off the internet, but the presentation by our guide was gr8. He kept us entertained throughout the 1 hour tour.

The area underground was maintained in a state of ruin such that it intrigues a visitor, but also easily navigable. It seems that the fire department regularly conducts audits of this area (and more out of reach of the tour). Well, it should considering that the whole “underground” area was aandoned after a major fire as all the buildings were made of wood. You can see even the wall-paper or whatever they used at that time on the wall in the photo below.

Some more photos from the tour:

More information about the history of the Seattle underground can be found here.

written by Rajaram S \\ tags: seattle, underground tour

Forced to write harbor cruise instead of harbour cruise because of the US of A standards! The Seattle harbor is just across the road from my office. We decided to try the harbor cruise last weekend. The weather was not so good. It had been raining incessantly from the morning, but the brochure of argosy cruises say that “come rain or shine, our cruises are always on time”.

So, off we went to Argosy cruises on Pier 55. The one hour harbor cruise costs 18 USD per person. There are other cruises too. Locks cruise –> 1.5 hrs, Lake Washington cruise –> 2.5 hrs. We thought we would be the only stupid people to go for a cruise in this rain, but we wrong, as we were accompanied by 200 other fools!

The view of the Seattle downtown area was great, but we were looking through walls of water pouring down. I was taking a big risk by attempting to take photos with my new 18-200 700 USD lens! While i was doing so, a guy who was also taking photos came up to me and said “Mine is waterproof”. I replied, “Mine is not!”.

As luck would have it, the rain cleared up a few minutes after the cruise left the docks. The sun shone through a gap in the clouds and it lit up the Seattle skyline. What was until now a very wet cruise turned out to be a enjoyable one after the rain cleared. You can see the Seattle aquarium in the photo below.

We also some sea lions basking in the afternoon sun. It seems that these sea lions come up to the shore on some of the remote beaches on the islands close to seattle.

A sea-plane also flew overhead. There are seaplane tours of seattle. This is on the plans for this weekend. I hope that the weather is fine then.

Some more photos from the cruise. Enjoy…

written by Rajaram S \\ tags: harbor cruise, seattle

An ideal getaway, Snoqualmie falls is just a 30-35 minute drive from Seattle. No wonder, the place is crowded on weekends and a parking place can be so difficult to find. The fall is 268f feet high and  pretty wide even though much of the water from the river upstream is diverted to the power plants. The drive to Snoqualmie is short and sweet with the fall colours omnipresent on the route. But, Snoqualmie can get pretty cold and if you are planning to walk down to the falls, better be prepared with warm clothing!

The moment you enter the first viewing platform, the waterfalls look impressive. You don’t get to see the entire river downstream from this platform. For that, you have to go a bit further where you see the “official” viewing platform easily identified by the scores of people packed into a small space!

If you have the energy and the interest, you can walk down to the bottom of the falls (almost) through a short trail. The distance is not that much, but the trail is pretty steep at places and can easily sap out your energy on the way up. The trail goes through thick forests and the greenery is awesome.

There were people kayaking on the river downstream and from time to time they approached the base of the falls. From more than 20 metres away, the spray from the falls was damn cold. I can’t imagine that these guys were trying go almost under the falls.

Once you go down to the bottom of the trail, you reach a dead-end at the viewpoint. Of course, you can jump over the boardwalk and go closer to the falls. I have heard that you could jump over, but there was no one outside the board walk when we reached there. So, i was discussing with Lokesh about this. A girl standing next to us overheard us talking and told us that it was okay to go ahead. So, off we went and immediately, scores of others followed! Looks like everyone was waiting for that someone to be the first!

Once you get down and manage to clabmer over the slippery rocks, you not only get to see the waterfall, but also to feel its force!

If someone ever said that the rocks are slippery and they won’t come down to the bottom of the falls, show them the picture below. Two little girls, i guess not more than 3-4 years old had a free rein at the falls and they were epxloring every nook and corner, of course under the watchful eye of their parents. That was pretty courageous of their parents!

written by Rajaram S \\ tags: seattle, snoqualmie falls, trail

This is the view from the place where i sit. The second photo is a zoomed-in one and the mountain you see is Mount Rainier.

written by Rajaram S \\ tags: downtown, seattle