Johansen - Insight Guides: Seattle City Guide

How To Use This E-Book

Getting around the e-book

This Insight CityGuide e-book is designed to give you inspiration for your visit to Seattle, as well as comprehensive planning advice to make sure you have the best travel experience. The guide begins with our selection of Top Attractions, as well as our Editors Choice categories of activies and experiences. Detailed features on history, people and culture paint a vivid portrait of contemporary life in Seattle. The extensive Places chapters give a complete guide to all the sights and areas worth visiting. The Travel Tips provide full information on getting around, hotels, activities from to culture to shopping to sport, plus a wealth of practical information to help you plan your trip.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in Seattle are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map] just tap this to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

Youll find hundreds of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Seattle. Simply double-tap on an image to see it full-screen.

About Insight Guides

Insight Guides have more than 40 years experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce 400 full-colour titles, in both print and digital form, covering more than 200 destinations across the globe, in a variety of formats to meet your different needs.

Insight Guides are written by local authors who use their on-the-ground experience to provide the very latest information; their local expertise is evident in the extensive historical and cultural background features. All the reviews in Insight Guides are independent; we strive to maintain an impartial view. Our reviews are carefully selected to guide to you the best places to stay and eat, so you can be confident that when we say a restaurant or hotel is special, we really mean it.

Like all Insight Guides , this e-book contains hundreds of beautiful photographs to inspire and inform your travel. We commission most of our own photography, and we strive to capture the essence of a destination using original images that you wont find anywhere else.

2013 Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

Table of Contents

Introduction

History

Features

Places

Travel Tips

Introduction: The Emerald City

Set against one of the most spectacular city backdrops in North America, Seattle has always been a city that moves with the times and is full of surprises.

Throughout its short history, from the sawmills of the pioneers to its position today at the vanguard of software, biomedical research, and philanthropy, Seattle has always been a forward-looking city with an unyielding entrepreneurial spirit that has resulted in some phenomenal success stories.

It is grounded in a multicultural, progressive, well-educated society. For a city its size (roughly 620,000 people), the arts are very well represented. You can see an exhibition at one of the fine art museums in the morning, stroll through a sculpture park in the afternoon, and rock out to a local gig at dozens of spots around the city any night of the year.

Buskers at Pike Place Market.

Tim Thompson/Apa Publications

But what sets this city apart is its striking setting, between two snowcapped mountain ranges and bordered by Puget Sound and Lake Washington. Its a verdant city of steep hills and sparkling waters, with beautiful views all around. If you look up, its not uncommon to see bald eagles flying overhead. With nature on its doorstep, its hardly surprising that an outdoor lifestyle prevails. Boating, skiing, and hiking are just some of the pleasures that await active visitors.

A coffee shop sign in this city of coffee-lovers.

Nathaniel Gonzales/APA Publication

The dining scene, too, draws on natures abundance. Some stars of the restaurant scene focus on freshly caught wild fish and seafood, seasonal produce, and excellent Washington state wines or innovative local microbrews. Ethnic foods of all varieties can be found in restaurants throughout the city, from casual to gourmet.

Seattle is a city that keeps evolving. From the boom and bust of the Klondike Gold Rush years, to the grunge explosion that rocked the music world in the 1990s, you never know whats next on the horizon. After all, the city that launched an aerospace leader and the worlds most recognizable coffee shop may yet have a few surprises up its sleeve.

Westlake Center.

Tim Thompson/Apa Publications

Seattles Top 10 Attractions

At a glance, the Seattle attractions you cant afford to miss, from the longest-running farmers market in the nation to cutting-edge architecture, captivating museums, and the chance to see some of that prized salmon.

Top Attraction 1

Pike Place Market . A farmers market extraordinaire, with flying fish, the freshest produce, and flowers galore, all sold by local vendors, with street entertainers and tantalizing ethnic food also on offer. For more information, .

Nathaniel Gonzales/APA Publication

Top Attraction 2

Space Needle . Since its debut for the Worlds Fair in 1962, the Space Needle has been an iconic symbol of Seattle, immortalized in such films as It Happened at the Worlds Fair, starring Elvis Presley. For more information, .

Top Attraction 3

Hiram M Chittenden Locks. In a remarkable feat of engineering, boats (and salmon) travel along the Ship Canal between freshwater Lake Washington, Lake Union and the saltwater Puget Sound via the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. For more information, .