Despite its soggy reputation, Seattle gets less rain than New York and Chicago. It's a city of two hundred breweries where there's a Starbucks for every 4,000 people and they put cream cheese on their hot dogs. It's home of the Space Needle and Pikes Market, the Science Center and the Experience Music Project museum. It sits on lovely Puget Sound, surrounded by water, mountains and woods, nicknamed 'emerald city' for its 1,000s of acres of urban parkland.
Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks with the first being opened in Pike Place Market in 1971.
Post Alley Gum Wall is famously smothered in chewed gum, and you're perfectly welcome to add a chunk of your own, DNA included. Yuk.
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Seattle has more houseboats than anywhere outside Asia
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Discover the huge one-eyed Troll sculpture under the bridge at North Street and Troll Avenue North
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The city has more glass-blowing studios than anywhere else, only beaten by Murano in Italy
Love spooky stuff? Take the city's famous Market Ghost Tour and walk Seattle's darkest places including the first mortuary, a creepy old graveyard and a pram reputed to hold the ghost of baby Isaac.
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Woodland Park Zoo is great. And the Museum of Flight is enormously popular with kids and grown ups alike. There's Waterfront Park, Olympic Sculpture Park with its very own beach, Lake Union and the Seattle Great Wheel for a start.
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Visit the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture – you could easily spend days there, lost in fascination
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See a show at the magnificent 5th Avenue theatre, built in 1926 and a star in the city's entertainment firmament
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You'd be crazy not to reserve seats at dizzying SkyCity, the revolving restaurant right on top of the Space Needle
Take in all three, visit Henry Art Gallery for a spot of culture and you'll be well on your way to getting familiar with the many delights this sparkling, sophisticated city has to offer.
Quirky Seattle is home to an annual No Pants Light Rail Ride, where travellers are encouraged to 'take off their pants and pretend that everything is normal.' Luckily, over there, 'pants' means 'trousers'!
Fancy indulging in a Chocolate Tour? Seattle is known for its sweets, and this is where the planet's finest salted caramels come from. You'll find these legendary treats at Fran's Chocolates, on store inside the Four Season’s Hotel and another towards the north end of the University Village shopping centre. And for something completely different... Kurt Cobain’s home on Lake Washington Boulevard is still a potent unofficial memorial for thousands of grieving fans. Washington Park Arboretum is a delightful place to while away a few hours. Smith Tower is the city's oldest skyscraper, complete with an observation deck at the top. And the Frye Art Museum is a brilliant cultural treat.
Beautiful Benaroya Hall is the home of the Seattle Symphony orchestra, a fabulous venue with legendary, world class acoustics. If you get the chance grab tickets for a concert, comedy show or gig and take the creative high ground. Tillicum Village is on Puget Sound, a short cruise away on Blake Island just off the Seattle shore. It dates back to before the 1962 Seattle World Fair, and makes for a fascinating experience as you watch the famous fresh salmon being prepared and discover how the region's Native American Indians once lived.