Traci Calderon is just what a visitor to Seattle needs: a friendly local who can help you get beneath the surface of the city most outsiders know only from a classic romcom starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
Released thirty years ago, Sleepless In Seattle introduced millions to America’s northernmost major city, Washington State, which now attracts more people than ever because so many cruise ships depart for Alaska.
But when my sister and I got off our cruise, instead of flying home, we decided to spend a few days exploring — and Chef Traci, as she’s known, made it so much easier.
Traci runs market-to-table shopping tours at Pike Place Market, the centuries-old downtown waterfront often featured in Sleepless In Seattle. The lively market has dozens of food, fashion and craft shops, but she takes you through her favorite stalls and vendors, including Sunny Honey, Truffle Queen and the Pike Place Fish Market, where fishmongers theatrically toss huge halibut back and forth .
Ahead, Traci points out downtown locations from the 1993 rom-com while sharing insider tips about the city.
Peter Wilson spent a few days exploring Seattle with his sister. Above is the city skyline, with Mount Rainier in the distance
A scene from Sleepless in Seattle, the 1993 movie starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks that put the city on the map
She ended our tour at her Atrium Kitchen restaurant for a cooking class and lunch of Pacific Northwest favorites like salmon with wild blackberry honey and blueberry sauce—all absolutely delicious.
We stayed a few blocks away at the comfortable Alexis Royal Sonesta Hotel.
Seattle is a compact city with an easy-to-navigate downtown area that makes it easy to explore on foot.
A short walk from Pike Place Market are many attractions, including the Great Wheel ride at Pier 57, which offers sweeping views of the bay, the dock for the excellent one-hour Argosy harbor cruise, and the Seattle Aquarium. A mile north is the site of the 1962 World’s Fair and the Space Needle. At its base is the Chihuly Garden And Glass, a beautiful collection of glass sculptures.
Catch of the Day: Peter was given a tour of Pike Place Market, where workers “theatrically” threw fish at each other (pictured)
The Museum of Pop Culture, pictured, celebrates the lives of local boys Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain
Nearby are two remarkably different attractions, funded by the founders of local technology giant Microsoft. The first is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Discovery Center – not very nice but thought-provoking, explaining the philanthropic causes it is involved in. Meanwhile, the late Paul Allen poured some of his own Microsoft fortune into a rock music venue that grew into the Museum of Pop Culture, which celebrated the lives of local boys Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain, among others.
The downtown area is surprisingly quiet, partly due to working from home and the fact that corporate giants Boeing and Microsoft have their own campuses outside the city. That makes hotels on the waterfront and Pike Place Market quieter and more attractive than in the inner cities of most American cities.
With sparkling water everywhere, Seattle is undoubtedly romantic. No wonder it was chosen as the location for the love story between Hanks and Ryan.
The best way to see it is from one of three vantage points. The most famous is the aforementioned Space Needle, while the tallest is the Sky View Observatory on the 73rd floor of the Columbia Center.
“With the shimmering water all around, Seattle is undoubtedly romantic,” says Peter
Above is Merchants Cafe, Seattle’s oldest bar/restaurant, a “friendly place to talk to the locals”
Peter was driven 35 minutes from Seattle to Snoqualmie Falls (above), which is 100 feet higher than Niagara Falls
But my favorite was the oldest skyscraper on the Pacific coast, the Smith Tower, a beautiful 1914 office tower clad in white terracotta with a 35th-floor observatory and a speakeasy-style bar serving creative cocktails. It is lavishly decorated and has a lobby decorated with beautiful onyx.
The tower stands next to Seattle’s birthplace, the Pioneer Square neighborhood, where you can join guided tours of underground streets buried when the city was rebuilt and raised after an 1889 fire.
One booze tunnel ran from Smith Tower to Merchants Cafe, Seattle’s oldest bar/restaurant. It’s a fun place to chat with the locals and watch broadcasts from the Seattle Seahawks (American football), Sounders (regular soccer), and Mariners (baseball), whose stadiums are nearby.
It’s also worth getting out of Seattle. We were driven by the more expensive operator First Nature Tours in 35 minutes to Snoqualmie Falls, which is 100 feet higher than Niagara Falls. Another 40 minutes took us to the Woodinville Wine Tasting Center, where an afternoon at John Bigelow’s JM Cellars and nearby major producer DeLille Cellars left us relieved we hadn’t driven. And it also meant we slept well that night—no Sleepless in Seattle for us.