I had a great time last month participating in Road Scholar’s tour, Hands-On Glass in Chihuly’s Seattle.  However, one of the nice things about Road Scholar tours is that, although there’s so much to see and do, it’s also fine to go off and explore on your own.

So while the rest of my group was having what they later said was a great time learning about glass fusing and lamp working at the Pratt Fine Arts Center, I decided to discover more of Seattle. This turned out to be easy because many of this city’s major attractions were relatively close to my hotel, the Warwick.

Early that morning I noticed that Amazon must have also thought that this was a good location. Its new Seattle headquarters was only about a block away.

Then I met up with Liz McCune of Eat Seattle  by taking a short walk toward Pike Place Market.

A Sorbonne educated chef, Liz provided me with a great foodie tour of the area around one of the oldest continually run markets in the United States.

The tour had a nice blend of historical as well as culinary information.

Liz also took me to a lesser known area of the market, a place where gardens were grown for its senior residence center.

 

After I said goodbye to Liz,  I walked about a mile to the Pacific Science Center where the new exhibit, Terracotta Warriors of the First Empire is being shown until September 4th.

This ticketed exhibit had many interesting pieces from the Qin dynasty. Among other things, I liked its more unique focus on what these statues would have looked like in their original colorful form.

I also enjoyed this museum’s tropical  butterfly house.  I could see why there were signs requiring you to be careful entering and leaving this area. As soon as I entered, I received a warm greeting from many of these colorful creatures. 

Several of Seattle’s major attractions are clustered close by each other and include this museum, the Space Needle and my next stop, the Museum of Pop Culture or MoPOP. 

 

If you like music or any of the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, this is a great place to go.

 

As I left MoPOP, it started to rain so I took the nearby Monorail which stopped only a short distance from my hotel.

Later during our tour’s free time, I went back to visit another of that area’s popular attractions, the Chihuly Garden and Glass. 

 

These all were memorable experiences and, as an added bonus, my group would take an interesting side trip to Tacoma. There we would see more beautiful examples of Chihuly and other forms of glass.

 

Next: Trip to Tacoma’s glass collections.