Seattle, Washington Skyline

UpTake’s own, Thomas Brown, recently visited rainy and beautiful Seattle, Washington after getting a great deal on a hotel from Travelzoo.com. He had an exciting weekend, filled with all that Seattle has to offer, including many of its most fabulous restaurants. Read below to hear about Thomas’s weekend getaway and to find out what to do and where to eat on your next trip to Seattle!

From Thomas Brown: Here’s the story:  I got a spectacular deal on a Seattle hotel room on Travelzoo’s Top 20, so off I went. While in Seattle, I achieved my three objectives in short order:  I watched it rain, I drank coffee, and I ate salmon.  (Hey, as a first-timer in Seattle, I didn’t know what to expect!)   But it turns out there’s a sophisticated cultural side to Seattle, as I discovered in my wanderings.

No estimation of a city’s cultural barometer is complete without taking restaurants into account, and Seattle didn’t disappoint on that score either:  One evening, I ate like a king at Shucker’s in the historic Fairmont Olympic Hotel.   On another night, I stumbled across the brand-new and ever-so-trendy Poppy in the Capitol Hill district.  Sleek and elegant, they take fusion  to a new level:  The focus is on “New NorthWestern  Cuisine,” but with a unique twist – everything is served Thali-style, thus enabling diners to sample over a dozen different dishes in one fell swoop!  I highly recommend both on your next trip to Seattle!

The Seattle Art Museum is my kind of place:  It’s on the small side, but with enough depth to its permanent collection to keep me engaged.  There were some lesser-known works by artist like Warhol and Rothko that captivated me precisely because of their ‘off the radar’ status.  I came across an early de Kooning  that looked for all the world like a Miro – all abstractionism, stripped of his usual representational elements.  And the size of the place enabled me to take in every last piece that was on display.

Another gem, the Seattle Symphony.  Despite my love of music, I had no familiarity with this ensemble before my trip.  I was wonderfully surprised!   Baroque was on the menu the night of my attendance, and they served up some lovely numbers by Bach, Rasphigi, and Handel.  It didn’t hurt that I attended with one of their board members, who generously arranged for me to go backstage after the performance and meet the conductor and several of the principal musicians. 

It was a sensational weekend!

Photocredit to Fddi1