Wednesday 4th

Best night’s sleep since we left home. Up around 7.30. We’d sorted ourselves out by 8.30 and went to Ralph’s Grocery for breakfast. Toast for Anne, scrambled egg, fried potatoes and a sausage patty for Les (all sold by weight). With two coffees it was about $13. Returned to our room and checked email. Tried to Facetime Tracey but connection too slow, so did a voice-only Skype which was fine.

Left hotel round 10.15 and walked the five or so blocks to the Space Needle. Weather bright but still slightly chilly - needed a sweater. Went straight up the Needle and sat with a coffee to start with. Walked all round outside taking shots. Not as spectacular as the views from other towers, but interesting.

Came down and went into Chihuly Garden and Glass. We were blown away by the fantastic display of glass. Several rooms inside display his changing styles over the years, and then a garden full of his glass. The whole thing is a permanent home for many things he’s created for special exhibitions over decades. Shared a roll and a lemonade in the cafe, partly in order to sit down for a while. In the gallery we started talking to some English people from Berkshire. They had just finished doing our tour ‘the other way round’. They asked if we would be in Port Alberni and we said we would be staying there. They said that we must go to a bar/restaurant called Chars Landing. We took so many pictures of the fantastic glass that I've put them in a separate gallery.

By now the weather was hot and sunny. Left about 2.15 and walked down Broad Street to The Olympic Sculpture Park. This is part of the Seattle Art Museum. The park is cleverly laid out and leads you down to the shoreline zig-zagging down the hill, so that you don’t notice you’re crossing the road and railway. Lots of very heavy-duty modern sculpture. Several notices telling you not to touch the art in case you damage it - much of it is made from 1” thick steel! Lots of pretentious descriptions.

Walked slowly along the waterfront until we came to Anthony’s Diner and fish restaurant. We were just going to have a beer, but eventually also had the $6 calamari (it was Happy Hour). Les drank Fish Tale Organic Amber Ale and Anne had Scuttlebutt Pale Ale Talked to a nice US couple on the next table. He was a pilot with Delta and flies regularly to Sydney. Managed the steep uphill walk along Lenora back to our hotel with help from the lift that avoids 8 flights of stairs from the waterfront. Fascinated to see how many buses are about during the evening rush hour. They carry bikes on the front - usually two per bus.

Anne did the accounts and checked the bank and credit cards (the Space Needle had refused the new Halifax Clarity card, but we think the young girl on the ticket desk did something wrong as she needed help to get the Nationwide Flex card to work as well. All seems OK.

After we’d rested a bit we walked back down to Anthony’s Diner and had the rest of the meal. Anne had Rockfish (like monkfish) and Les had the Fisherman’s Catch with prawns, calamari, salmon and cod. All very interesting. Both dishes came with coleslaw which was very nice and contained fresh ginger. Unusual but nice. Les drank more Fish Tale and Anne had Leavenworth Friesian Pilsner.

A slow walk back up Lenora to the hotel. Had time to update the diary before going to bed. Les removed the limit on the Dropbox upload, so photos are uploading quicker than before. Useful as we took so many pics yesterday.

Thursday 5 June

Same start as yesterday with breakfast at Ralph’s Grocery across the road. Skyped Tracey  voice-only. She and Niamh were walking the dogs. Niamh knew a surprising amount about Seattle.

Left the hotel a little after 10 and walked down Lenora and then along 2nd to get to Pike’s Market. Spent the whole morning looking around the market area. A terrific range of food and craft outlets of every imaginable type. Saw the famous ‘fish throwing’, and Anne even managed to get it on camera. Once we’d had our fill of the market we walked down to the shoreline and headed south. We went into the Food Court by the Ferris wheel and shared halibut and chips and an Alaskan Amber Ale. Very nice fish - think it was Halibut cheeks.

Came out and walked past 2 or 3 piers until we came to the ferry/cruise terminal. It was 1pm and there was a 1-hour harbour cruise starting at 1.30pm so we took it. An excellent trip. By now it was really sunny and warm. Because it was lunchtime the boat wasn’t at all crowded and everybody sat outside on the top deck. The commentary was really informative and the time went very quickly. We were able to get some good shots of the skyline in the very clear weather.

Got off and started walking towards the Pioneer Square area. Almost immediately we witnessed a car accident. It was a bit strange because both drivers simply stayed in their cars for quite a long time. Eventually they both got out. Nobody seemed particularly irate or hurt so we moved on.

We got up to the Pioneer Square area and started to look round. We found the Grand Central Mall and went in and had a drink. After this we had a brief look round. The area is smaller and more run down than the guides would have you believe. You can see that with a lot of the old buildings still in place it could be quite attractive in the same way as Washington’s Georgetown but it has to go a bit upmarket first.  We were impressed with the tiny Waterfall Garden provided by an individual donation to mark the spot where UPS was founded.

We decided that we’d start to head back to the hotel - on foot again - everything seems within reasonable walking distance. We walked up to 4th and then found to our surprise that we were very close to King Street Station where we’d arrived on Tuesday. It was a longish walk back but not unpleasant as the area improved as we went north. We called into a drug store and found that the razor blades Les needed were far cheaper than in the UK so we bought a large pack.

A little further on we found a nice coffee bar/cafe. We saw they were doing sorbets so we went in and sat down so that Anne could have a Green apple sorbet. We carried on walking through Century Square where the shops started to get upmarket. Shortly after this Les tripped on some uneven paving and fell. He was relatively unhurt - only jarring his wrists. We were worried that the camera was damaged but fortunately Les still had the lens hood on and this seems to have taken the impact. The lens hood itself is broken (might be able to fix it with superglue) but there seems to be no other damage.

We walked back a little more slowly and realised that there are a few restaurants in the road not too far from the hotel. It’s odd that the very last few yards down to our hotel look quite blank and you get no impression of what’s just up the road.

Arrived back and had a cup of tea. Anne organised all the packing for tomorrow. We have a car booked for 9.45am to take us to the car rental pick up at the airport.

We couldn’t decide where to eat. As we’d walked back in the afternoon we’d seen a nice Italian a little way north on 4th. We looked in at the hotel restaurant but it seemed very noisy and full of corporate types. We walked east on Lenora down to 5th. We’d seen two restaurants here earlier. After a quick look we decided to go into the Palace Kitchen. This was bustling and noisy but in a nice way -  a much larger place than we imagined. As always the service was extremely good. We tried yet another couple of American beers - they do seem to be producing an amazing number of nice local brews. We had a very nice meal - Anne had the Appetizer size portion of halibut with asparagus and Les had a ‘hanger’ steak with mash and greens. Les said the greens reminded him (in a good way) of Sunday lunch at home when he was a boy. Unfortunately the dressing on Anne’s asparagus must have had something milky or creamy in it as she had a bad night - can’t blame the restaurant.

Went to bed pretty well as soon as we got back to the hotel.