Seattle, USA: savouring a city's flavours(2)
I opted for the Boulder Red and toasted the weather: in two days in the wettest part of the continent, the sun had shone as though ultraviolet rays were going out of style. Something has to make the grapes grow.
Seattle Essentials
Pamela Petro travelled with the help of America As You Like It (020 8742 8299; www.americaasyoulikeit.com), which offers a return flight from London on British Airways plus four nights at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel for £920 per person, based on two sharing a double room.
Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau (001 206 462 5800; www.visitseattle.org) offers a worthwhile City Pass that cuts admission to many attractions – such as the Music Project – by half. Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses is running until April next year; see www.empfsm.org. The two-hour Seattle Tour of Music (http://whitemoustache.com/rock-n-roll-music-tour) takes in the homesteads and hang-outs of Seattle greats from Ray Charles to Cobain. From £18 to £25.
Savor Seattle Food Tours (001 888 987 2867; www.savorseattletours.com) leads a Pike Place Market Tour, a Chocolate Indulgence Tour and a Gourmet Seattle Tour (the latter includes conversations with chefs and artisans and a microbrewery visit). Tours last two to three hours and cost from £24 to £44 per person.
Reading
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (Bloomsbury, £6.99) is about Japanese immigrants in Seattle. (A Pike Place memorial notes that in 1941 two thirds of farmers' stalls in the market were manned by Japanese-Americans; today, "none" of them is, following internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.) See also The Rough Guide to Seattle (Rough Guides, £10.99).
