Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Welcome to
Seattle
Seattle is America's Cinderella city. Founded in 1851 and
overlooked until the 1960s, it's been making up for lost time
ever since.
A Confederation of Neighborhoods
Since it's less a city and more a loose alliance of jostling neighborhoods, getting to know
Seattle is like hanging out with a family of affectionate but sometimes errant siblings.
There's the aloof, elegant one (Queen Anne), the cool, edgy one (Capitol Hill), the
weird, bearded one (Fremont), the independently minded Scandinavian one (Ballard),
the bruised, weather-beaten one (Pioneer Square) and the precocious adolescent still
carving out its identity (South Lake Union). You'll never fully understand Seattle until
you've had a microbrew in all of them.
Going Local
Make a beeline for Seattle's proverbial pantry: Pike Place Market. It was founded in
1907 to ply locals with fresh Northwest produce, and its long-held mantra of 'meet the
producer' is still echoed enthusiastically around a city where every restaurateur worth
their salt knows the first name of their fishmonger and the biography of the cow that
made yesterday's burgers. Welcome to a city of well-educated palates and experimental
chefs who are willing to fuse American cuisine with just about anything - as long as the
ingredients are local.
Coffee & Beer
The city that invented Starbucks coffee and Rainier beer has gone back to the drawing
board in recent years and come up with an interesting alternative - a new wave of small,
independent micro-businesses that are determined to put taste over global reach. Imbibe
the nuances of a home-roasted Guatemalan coffee and check out the latest in nano-brew-
eries in the city that has put a coffee shop on every street corner and created a different
craft beer for every night of the year.
