Tagabonds: Seattle WA

Monday, April 1, 2013

Seattle | Part 3

After checking out the market and having our fill of caffeine, we set out to explore more of Seattle. We kept saying over and over that, if we were looking to move to the west coast, this might be our spot. It's a perfect-sized city, with plenty to do without being overwhelming.

We basically walked all around the city, exploring downtown, the International District, the waterfront and, of course, we went to see the Space Needle. We also made our way over to Capitol Hill, where tattoos, skinny jeans, and coffee shops are commonplace - we always fall for the hipster neighborhoods because they tend to have the coolest restaurants and coffee shops (on a related note, check out this Huffington Post article on hipster neighborhoods, where Capital Hill made the list).

As for food, we hit up Dim Sum King in Chinatown for lunch, then had a super enjoyable al fresco dinner at The Pink Door, where Taras took down a whole fish and I devoured some seafood pasta. The next day we biked from Seattle out to the area's wine country in Woodinville where the original Red Hook Brewery resides - their other brewery is located in Portsmouth, NH so we were stoked to see the original and enjoy a taste of home!

We could do post after post about Seattle, but to keep it from dragging out I've included a lot of pictures in this post...

-Amanda

See more Seattle posts here and more Washington posts here.

Seattle on Dwellable

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Seattle | Part 2

A couple of weeks before we made our way to Seattle, a friend of ours went for a visit of her own. She let us know that one of the highlights of her trip was going on a coffee tour around the city. We're not usually ones to go on guided tours, but her excitement swayed us to go on the Seattle By Foot Coffee Crawl.

We genuinely had the best couple of hours. The tour started at Pike's Place, then continued through the city, stopping at five coffee shops along the way. We learned about some of Seattle's (coffee and non-coffee) history, and even got familiar with the city's public transportation system as we made our way to the other side of town.

Our Monday morning tour group, led by the amazing Terrilyn, was only 5 people large, which made for good conversation while we strolled the streets. And the whole group was so patient with our extreme photo taking -- thank you, guys!

I only have one tip: don't dare ask for decaf. :)

-Amanda

Here is the breakdown of our caffeine-fueled tour...

A refreshing iced coffee at Seattle's Best to start the day:

We walked by THE Starbucks, and were surprised to find out that this #1 store is technically not the original. The first Starbucks burned down some time ago and the current store does not stand in the original location. Starbucks is not part of the tour - which is great because you can get their coffee anywhere - but they do include some history and information on the company, since it's such a popular part of the city's coffee history:

We stopped in at Caffe D'arte for a latte and they showed us how they make latte art:

We stopped at Dilettante Mocha Cafe and enjoyed an indulgent mocha (and drooled over the dessert case):

We made our way over to Trabant to experience coffee from one of the very few Clover machines that exists outside of Starbucks ownership (they got their hands on it before Starbucks bought the company). The Clover brew tasted very earthy, and maybe the whole appeal was lost a little bit on us (maybe our coffee palates aren't quite advanced enough...). The decor and vibe of the shop was awesome, and so were the sandwiches:

We finished up at Caffe Umbria, with macchiatos (if memory serves us correctly):

At the last stop we all chatted a bit longer and Terrilyn gave us some great food suggestions, and then we were off to explore more of Seattle.

See more Seattle here and more Washington here.