Seattle Trip - Part Three

On our last day in Seattle we took the underground tour. It was super fascinating and fun to take. My only regret is that we didn't take the "Nightlife Underground Tour" which covers some of the "working women" and how they helped to shape Seattle but that tour is only in the evening and we were leaving Seattle that afternoon.

The underground tour starts in an old bar and you walk in and out of old abandoned buildings but Seattle literally has an underground. I'll probably do a horrible job at explaining but basically the government decided to re-grade Seattle so it wouldn't have as many problems with the tide flooding the area and in order to re-grade businesses would have to close for 10+ years so the business were allowed to stay open but as the city was regraded the business would end up being at basement level. and they couldn't build tunnels at intersections so if you got the end of a street there would be a ladder that would take you to the new ground level - which was anywhere from like 5 feet - 14 feet. Yowza! Needless to say - I'm glad I didn't live in Seattle in the 1800's!

Not only would it suck to climb down 14 feet to get to my grocery store but this was what the plumbing was like a wood pipe!

Loved this hotel sign for $.75 rooms!

Certain areas of the underground had skylight areas to help the shops not feel like they were underground. The city has kept a lot of them!

A beautiful archway that stands outside of where the underground tour starts


Apparently, in the late 50's-60's Seattle didn't see much use in the former shops and street alleys that used to be the underground of Seattle so people started dumping things there when they would remodel such as this piece of molding.

Now, there isn't much cool stuff because antique collectors have gone threw and salvaged what they could. Some of the "antiques" that are down there were donated.

After the underground tour we went to another old Art Deco building. You get to take an old fashioned elevator ride to the top floor.

The view from the top is amazing! From one side you could see straight to the Ocean.

The other side looked over the stadium


After the underground tour we did one last walk threw of the Pike Place Market and hit up the original Starbucks.



In the background you can see Starbucks. We were lucky and there wasn't a line to get in so we quick grabbed some warm drinks. Unforunately, we didn't really get any of the inside of the store but it wasn't like a regular starbucks. It was filled with Starbucks mugs in the shelves and it was pretty open inside to accommodate the large crowds that filter in.

One last picture in front of the famous sign

and I even got my picture taken holding my original Starbucks drink!

If you're planning a trip to Seattle in the future and want some great restaurant recommendations please let me know. I didn't cover a lot of the places we went because I didn't take pictures.