"Sunny Seattle?" a Seattle Travel Page by Ewingjr98

Seattle is a beautiful city perched on the edge of the Puget Sound less than 100 miles from the Canadian border. While natives have inhabited the area for some 4,000 years, the first European settlement was established in 1851. The initial settlement was at Alki Point in West Seattle, but most settlers soon moved to what is today known as Pioneer Square. Seattle's early growth was fueled by the lumber industry then the Klondike gold rush of 1896. More modern growth focused on transportation, primarily shipbuilding and Boeing's aircraft production, but it also included technology in the form of companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

Today Seattle has a population of nearly 600,000 people while the metropolitan area claims nearly four million residents. The city is well known for its coffee consumption (it is the birthplace of Starbucks, Seattles Best Coffee, and Tully's) as well as its wealthy and highly educated population.

We had a great two-day visit in Seattle, getting the chance to see much of the city in a very short time. We arrived relatively late on 27 June, so after checking into our hotel we only had time to walk to the waterfront, check out Pike Place Market after it had closed, then grab dinner at Pioneer Square.

The next morning we got an early lunch at Pike Place Market, wandered through Bell Town, visited the Space Needle, then took the Monorail back to our hotel. That evening we walked to Chinatown in the rain, had dinner the stopped again at Pioneer Square and the Waterfront. Before retiring for the night, we had a few drinks at the Pike Brewery and the Virginia Inn in Belltown.

Our last day in Seattle we drove over to Chinatown and had dim sum at the Purple Dot Cafe, then departed for Vancouver!