Seattle Underground Tour and Vancouver Winter Wander

This past weekend, I was able to spend some quality ‘tourist’ time in two of my favorite cities: Seattle and Vancouver.

A quick day trip to Seattle met with great weather as my girlfriend and I took in the Underground Tour of Seattle. It’s been on my list of things to do in Seattle for as long as I’ve lived on the West Coast and just never got around to it.

Meeting up in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, we started off with a brief bit of history at the tour’s base of operations and museum. We then headed out into the square and proceeded through the streets and into nondescript doorways and passages which lead us to stairwells that took us to the underground.

I don’t want to give away anything but the tour focuses on the parts of Seattle history that have been ‘swept under the rug’ and tells a fantastic tale of the city’s early days. It reminded me a lot of the Sins of City Tour in Vancouver…it’s amazing how many cities are built by some very colorful characters.

Our guide, Teri-Lyn was outstanding and she really made the tour come alive. It truly is a unique tour that I highly recommend checking out. I love the fact that so much is hiding behind and below those hidden stairwells and doorways throughout Pioneer Square.

Then, once back in Canada, I headed down to Vanier Park on Saturday for the Winter Wander. It was basically a $5 open house to all the attractions at Vanier Park. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’d never been inside the Maritime Museum so it seemed like the perfect time to change that. I then proceeded to climb all over the St. Roch with my camera in hand.

After passing a little yarn bomb between venues,

we headed to the Museum of Vancouver and the Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver exhibit which I had been wanting to check out.

Also couldn’t resist checking out the Smilin’ Buddha sign in the permanent exhibit side of the museum either.

A couple of great photo walk days for sure. Check out all the photos from the Seattle Underground Tour and the Winter Wander on Flickr.