Inside the Outdoor City : Seattle Is Rich With Inexpensive Diversions to Satisfy Even the Most Budget-Conscious Visitor

It didn’t take us long and we didn’t have to go far to get from one world to another. . . .

A few minutes paddling the rented canoe and we cross Lake Washington’s Union Bay, out beyond the waterfront homes, coursing under the roar of the Highway 520 freeway bridge, and, ahhhh, into the placid lagoon and narrow, bayou-like channel of the Washington Park Arboretum.

A wide-eyed heron twitches as we slip past, but the small turtle basking on an old snag rests undisturbed. A family of geese swims away, carving little geese wakes in front of us. Two old men sit on buckets and look up from their fishing bobbers.

Put down the paddle and glide, time for a sudsy bottle of Ballard Bitter ale and slice of cold-smoked king salmon unwrapped from white butcher paper. At first rustle of lunch, the goose family swivels about in hope of begging an invitation.

Trees of significant dimensions and far-away Latin names hang over the banks; footpaths are overwhelmed with early summer’s azaleas and rhododendrons. Here is one of America’s major botanical gardens, enriched with sweet air that has been scrubbed by 3,000 miles of open ocean. Everywhere, rich hues of Northwest green fill the background.

This is the city of Seattle, I explain, although by now it has mostly explained itself--a metropolis still connected to its myth, never far from nature, and in the polite meaning of the word, exhibitionist. The scale and pace here is, to put it simply, pleasant. By no means exotic, but still a time zone ahead of sleepy. Big enough but not so dauntingly big. Far away but not so far. More cosmopolitan than complex.

And, at such prices as our $3.50 rental fee for the canoe at the University of Washington Waterfront Activities Center, its enticements are not necessarily expensive.

In the national imagination, the Northwest of the ‘90s, like Southern California of the ‘50s, has come to mean quality of life.

Too much so for some who reside here. These days, a good case can be made that Seattle’s ballyhooed livability has declined after years of locust-like growth and sprawl and political vapor lock. Relentless traffic, congested suburbanization and the whole inventory of urban woes--drugs, gangs, indifferent schools, homelessness and inflated property values--should be enough to wipe the luster off Seattle ZIP codes.

But little of it spoils Seattle’s visitability .

The best parts of the city are still here and still within reach. They do not require unlisted phone numbers, high-placed friends, secret code rings or credit checks. Although, to be honest, it helps to have a fondness for boats and water to fully appreciate a place with an hourglass figure--with freshwater Lake Washington forming its curves to the east, saltwater Puget Sound the curves to the west, and with a ship canal and small lakes laced through at the waist.

Take the ferry, for instance.

It’s the No. 1 tourist attraction. Yet its function is not for tourism. Since the turn of the century, ferry boats have been used by island residents of Puget Sound to commute east to the city and by city dwellers to reach the islands and Olympic Peninsula to the west.

Today, thousands of residents rely on the ferry for daily transportation, and visitors ride along by the thousands more. Boats from the downtown dock connect to Bainbridge Island and the peninsula city of Bremerton. It’s inexpensive. A round-trip due west to the bedroom community of Bainbridge Island, formerly known as the Winslow landing, costs $4.

There is no more dramatic view of the Seattle skyline than from the receding ferry, nothing that so captures the essence of this city. In the 10 p.m. summer sunsets, the silhouetted city can glow orange; in the fog of morning, it assumes a greenish-silver. The 20-knot ferries standing three stories tall throw cool salt air in your face, and the one-hour round-trip ride (no need for foot passengers to disembark) leaves you with a water-level tease of the alluring maze of deep green geography that is Puget Sound.

Now is the time for a caution: Seattle is a place to reacquaint yourself with your feet, rain or shine. Cars in the city can transform a pleasant excursion into a dispiriting snarl. There are more than 20 ferries a day to Bainbridge, for example. Virtually always there is room for walk-ons. Those who insist on driving aboard, however, can expect traffic that can grow hellish in the summer, with waits of three hours or sometimes more.

Parking downtown is expensive, street routes confusing and poorly marked. Veterans of the Southern California daily commute who insist on driving will find no respite here.

Everything described in this story can be reached by walking, floating, an occasional taxi or via a clean and easy bus system. Buses downtown are free. Fares to outlying areas within the city are 75 cents, $1 at rush hour. Call Metro at (206) 553-3000 for routes, or to have a free bus-route map sent to you pre-visit. Most bus stops are equipped with a schedule board. Check your return carefully; some routes discontinue in the evening hours.

Buses are as good a place as any to begin to appreciate Seattle’s 19-year commitment to devote 1% of its projects budget to public art. The downtown core’s new underground bus stations were designed as permanent galleries as well as commuter terminals.

The cavernous Westlake Station at Third and Pike streets, underneath the main department-store shopping corridor, features 10-by-35-foot enamel murals, whimsical stone bench carvings, a faux-city park in colored terra-cotta tile and more. Other stations have themes ranging from high-tech to historic.

They say that more than 1,000 pieces of public art now adorn the city, its parks, buildings and even its sidewalk person-hole covers. The Seattle Arts Commission (206-684-7171) publishes a free pamphlet on public art.

Glass art works are a specialty in the Northwest, thanks to the influence of the famous Pilchuck Glass School, located north of the city. This is America’s only school devoted solely to glass. A rotating 48-piece exhibit of spectacular Pilchuck glass is displayed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Ask for directions to the tucked-away mezzanine display area.

The entire airport, in fact, is sprinkled with art: a ceramics exhibit from a local gallery and 18 permanent works including a large aluminum sculpture by Robert Maki, a wood sculpture by Louise Nevelson and a Robert Rauschenberg mirror serigraph.

Local art galleries are abundant. Two with local flavor and a far-reaching reputation are the Linda Farris Gallery (320 Second Ave. S.), which features some of the best contemporary artists in the region, and the Northwest Gallery of Fine Woodworking (201 First Ave. S.), with displays of craftsmanship and elegant design in wood furniture and adornments.

Seattle is quite proud of its new civic art museum, which opened this winter. Unfortunately, it represents the worst impulse of medium-sized cities: the desire to be grandiose. For $30 million-plus, the city ended up with a novelty--architect Robert Venturi’s indulgent interpretation of a Seattle hillside street scene. Here you must travel up three floors just to reach the main exhibit space. If Venturi makes you curious, you can save the $5 admission and peer in the window to see the giant staircase that is the nucleus of the design.

If you cannot resist going inside, the African crafts and Native Northwest Indian collections are well-regarded.

But for street scenes, better you should go up two blocks to the real thing. It’s free.

Perhaps, you say, the Pike Place Market has become a cliche.

You’re right, but that marks you as a cynic.

For everyone else, residents as well as visitors, the turn in the road where Pike Street meets Pike Place remains the city’s comfortable, loud, jostling, laughable and curious counterpoint to the nearby urban high-rises and to the cold tourist-commercial waterfront down the hill. Here, in a short 2 1/2 blocks, Seattle keeps alive the old tradition of a city-center public market. Here is a place everyone still goes. Again and again. The Space Needle may be the skyline landmark; the National Historic District along Pike Street and Pike Place is the mark of its distinction.

The green-and-white 1907 wooden market building is open to the air along the west side of the worn brick street. It’s a walking place, a daytime place, an old-time place. It hangs over a steep hill, where you can wander down for three stories, with shops that sell everything from parrots to six-pound geoduck clams and all kinds of ticky-tacky in between. A warren of market shops and cafes line the other side of the street. Viola the barber cuts hair at Trudy & Lenora’s, right where her mother did and before that her mother’s mother. She’ll show you where the hitching post used to be affixed outside.

We start with an authentic breakfast.

Those unshaven bruisers at the booth drinking pitchers of beer first thing in the morning at the Athenian Inn really are Bering Sea fishermen. The lawyers over there in their drapy Italian suits hardly make a statement in such company. We skip the pitchers and try the Philadelphia scrapple and bacon and an Indian rice-lentil-egg dish called kedgeree (each $5.25). Why settle for just bacon and eggs at a Pike Street Market restaurant that has been serving since the fishing fleet went by sail and looks it?

Here again, only a short distance carries us a world apart. No chromed steel and tinted glass here. This is raw wood floors, hard benches and a windowpane view of the waterfront. Novelists have been known to come here scouting for characters; this is public art that breathes in flannel shirts.

At about 10-ish, the rest of the market stirs.

At Pike Place Fish, crowds gather as they might at a Las Vegas baccarat table, waiting for a high-roller to buy a fresh salmon. From a tub of ice, the rubber-aproned fish monger then grabs a yardlong king salmon. “King . . . Filet it!” he shouts as he heaves it 20 feet to a counterman. “King . . . Filet it!” the cashiers yell back in unison. Caution--low flying fish, say the signs. Bravo, says the crowd.

Might as well plan lunch here, too.

In sunshine, an abundance of cafes in and around the market open like flowers, offering open-air settings sheltered from the intrusion of traffic. The casual balcony cafe Copacabana, on Pike Place, features a Bolivian shrimp soup, sopa de camarones (large bowl, $4.25), the recipe for which can be obtained only by marrying into the family. The Pink Door, on Post Alley, serves a ricotta-Gorgonzola cheese spread with a roasted head of garlic ($5.50) that will test the marriage you already have.

One of the most pleasant lunches in town is a stroll through the market from fish counter to produce stand to deli to bakery, grazing at your pleasure--a quarter-pound of any of a dozen or so varieties of alder-smoked salmon (about $2.75), perhaps a juicy starfruit ($1.25), maybe a loaf of Italian bread ($2.49), a jigger of rich olive oil ($2.39 for 1.6 ounces) and a cluster of blemish-free grapes (seasonal).

Not so quaint but worth the visit to the market’s South Arcade Building on First Avenue is World Class Chili. Even homemade chili snobs finish lunch at the counter believing the place is worthy of the name. Choose a bowl of beef, chicken, vegetarian or beef-and-pork ($3.92), put it over beans, rice or crackers, and tell Joe to spice it extra-hot only if you are deadly serious.

All along the market, flower boxes drape from the light shades. Fresh bread smells fill the air. The music of tin-pan bands, pianos on wheels, string quartets and jazz guitarists--all of varying quality--orchestrate the movement. The crowds are dense and move slowly, so you may have to remind yourself to take it easy and marvel at how the civic forebears 80 years ago met a challenge that has eluded scores of modern urban architects: How do you make a place in the city friendly to people?

While at the market, the theater-minded will find a booth at the corner of Pike Street and First Avenue that sells half-price tickets to that night’s performances around town. There are nine Actors’ Equity theaters in the vicinity, and at any given time, 10 to 15 smaller community theater productions.

In matters of live performance, Seattle considers itself a leader. That is certainly true of its audiences. We attended a music performance awhile back and found that the city’s feminist community was no longer willing to wait for equity in the matter of restroom lines. In a bloodless insurrection, the women had taken over all the bathrooms in the theater, their self-appointed door guards sending men dancing from one john to the next, alas, never to find relief.

Dinner is reason to splurge a little in Seattle. Expect good but not great. (The region’s most highly rated restaurants are in outlying areas, such as the Herbfarm in Fall City. There, reservations are taken two days a year, once in spring and once in summer, although you can call at 1 p.m. on Fridays (206-784-2222) and hope for an opening the following weekend, when they may be serving either lunch or dinner, their choice. Fixed-price dinner, $75 and up.)

The most famous of the area fish houses--Ray’s Boathouse (789-3770) and Ivar’s Salmon House (632-0767)--are extremely popular and require reservations long in advance. Both are taxi rides into the northern areas of town. (Salmon entrees: Ray’s, $16.95-$18.95; Ivar’s, $15.95-$17.95.)

Closer to downtown, the Dahlia Lounge and Wild Ginger offer pleasant atmosphere and variations of what they call here “contemporary Northwest cuisine.” At their best, each restaurant can be memorably good.

The two-story, floral-boothed Dahlia (682-4142) was founded by one of the area’s most popular chefs, Tom Douglas. The menu changes daily, with popular offerings such as Waldorf salad ($4.95) and hoisin barbecue duck, salmon, chicken or ribs (to $18.95).

Sleek and modern, Wild Ginger (623-4450) blends Asian cuisines with its satay bar-- satay being meat or fish skewered and grilled, which you dip in sauce. There is Vietnamese fish satay ($3.50) and Indonesian tiger prawns ($3.50). The entre menu ranges from squid Singapore ($9.50) to vegetarian monk’s curry ($8.50).

The Palomino Bistro is an upscale, high-rise pizzeria on the courtyard mezzanine of the Pacific First Building, 1420 First St. Terrific evening starters include a folded focaccia, filled with Gorgonzola, pine nuts and sweet red onion ($4.95), and spit-roasted-chicken pizza (8.95). A bonus here is Pacific First’s spectacular exhibit of glass art works, including some of the largest individual pieces on public display anywhere in the Northwest.

Once in the lobby, you won’t miss the exhibit, although it might take you an hour to appreciate it all. Of particular note is the second-floor display of huge, multicolored pieces by Dale Chihuly, one of the best known of America’s glass artists, and the equally massive offering by William Morris, which looks like a life-size dinosaur skeleton with red marrow in its glass bones.

Working up an appetite means getting into the outdoors. And few cities offer as much as handy as Seattle.

The quaint Hiram M. Chittenden ship locks are about five miles north of downtown (3015 N.W. 54th St.). Here, 100,000 boats a year are lifted nine vertical feet from Puget Sound into and out of the fresh water of Lake Washington and Lake Union. On a summer day, hundreds upon hundreds of working boats, fishing boats, sailboats, speedboats, Navy boats and power cruisers pass through the turn-of-the-century locks.

Every day, year-round, visitors gather, sometimes by the hundreds, along the edge of the two concrete locks to enjoy the sometimes graceful, sometimes comical spectacle of millions of dollars of watercraft maneuvering in tight quarters under the direction of laconic Corps of Engineers locksmen. When things get particularly tense in the narrow water, it is amusing to hear someone yell out, “Hey doc!” and watch three of five pleasure boat skippers look up, ready to answer.

Several acres of lawn and the well-tended Carl English Botanical Gardens at the locks make this a perfect spot for a bring-along picnic. The water here is also a busy pathway for spawning salmon and steelhead, and the locks complex includes a modern fish ladder with both outdoor and underwater viewing stations to watch the fish, sometimes by the writhing hundreds, advance toward ancestral breeding grounds--especially in midsummer.

This is likely to be the only place you hear anybody openly complain about “those damn Californians.” In this case, local residents are referring to the California sea lions that in recent years have appeared at the foot of the fish ladder to gorge themselves on migrating salmon. (The largest of them, “Herschel,” has become something of a local legend.) At this writing, government officials and fishermen are pulling their hair out trying to figure a way to rid themselves of what they regard as naked interstate poaching. They have tried trucking the sea lions back south at great cost, only to find them returning in a matter of weeks. No doubt famished.

More boats: Two miles due north of downtown is small Lake Union, which sits between Lake Washington and Puget Sound and is the most cosmopolitan water in Seattle. It’s also the most fun to visit on foot or afloat.

At the south end, peer into the working past of the city, reminiscent of the era when fishermen plied the North Pacific under sail. Here, at $1 a head, the turn-of-the-century, 468-ton fishing schooner Wawona is open to walk through, from simple galley to lavish captain’s quarters.

Next door, the small but enjoyable Center for Wooden Boats wraps fun and museum together at 1010 Valley St. (206-382-BOAT). The entire collection of small, historic sailing and rowing craft can be admired and rented. Among the jewels is an authentic gaff-rigged, 12 1/2-foot sloop by the famed naval architect firm of Herreshoff. Rates are $8-$15 an hour, plus a $5 checkout with an instructor on sailing craft. If you don’t already know how to sail, do not be afraid of rowing this sheltered water.

Either by foot or on the water, the lake offers a glimpse at Seattle’s colorful neighborhoods of floating homes, and a fine perspective on the skyline, along with the bustle of boatyards, docks without gates, a float-plane airline that lands in the lake and any number of tiny vest-pocket parks for resting. Fairview Avenue on the east side of the lake is a walk down the last country road in the city.

A longer bus ride from downtown will take you to Discovery Park, a 534-acre, one-time Army base that has been returned to nature, with large groves of old-growth trees, meadow picnic sites and pleasant hiking trails that lead to wild bluffs and driftwood beaches along the cold waters of Puget Sound. This is one of two places in the city limits where bald eagles are known to nest. If you ignore the blight of a water-treatment plant at the far end of the park, it’s pleasant to walk out to the West Point lighthouse.

Along with the outdoors, if you haven’t heard already, coffee and beer are two Seattle specialties. Not the ordinary, industrial brews, you understand, but beverages so refined in quality and variety as to change your tastes forever. You’ll drink less and enjoy more.

Latte stands and coffee booths, some of the drive-through variety, are everywhere in the city, and their menus extensive. This is where it started, maybe the result of the gray winters here or the region’s well-developed interest in fresh ingredients. Locals may have their favorite street-corner coffee chefs, but virtually any of the stands can make you a coffee drink like you’ve never tasted. There’s even the Espresso Dentistry, an espresso insurance agency, and many supermarkets have espresso counters. Some note that S-E-A-T-T-L-E is a virtual anagram for L-A-T-T-E-S.

As for beer, this city, like San Francisco and unlike Los Angeles, supports a thriving community of taverns. As with fish and people, beer deteriorates rapidly with age. Taverns that look like they have soul almost always lean toward high-quality fresh local beers, such as Hale’s Ale, Red Hook, Ballard Bitter and Pyramid.

Bartenders report that favorites among women are wheat beers, which are the lightest of ales. They have a faint nutty aftertaste and are especially tangy with a wedge of lemon. Visitors who want to sample variety in beers should, like wine, start with the lights and go to the darks.

Seattle’s downtown waterfront, unfortunately, has been stripped of its character to make way for a standard tourist haunt, full of generic trinkets and generic food. Few locals venture there except to reach the ferry terminal. But not so old Pioneer Square.

Back in 1853, two founding settlers set the stage for a sharp division that still splits the character of the city into two. The south area of town was laid out by raconteur David (Doc) Maynard, the north by business-minded Arthur Denny. Today, Denny’s city is the downtown business core; Maynard’s the bawdy, slightly frayed but atmospheric area known as Pioneer Square.

The avenues of the two areas meet at strange angles along one of the most famous streets in America. It’s now called Yesler Way, but is known as the lane where lumbermen used to skid their logs to the waterfront from the hills above the city, the original Skid Road--eventually relabeled Skid Row in other cities.

Pioneer Square and the several blocks that run south to the Kingdome sports stadium comprise an old-town area of dogged integrity, with its 1890s brick architecture and its continuing equilibrium of work and play, of down-and-out’ers and out-to-have-fun’ers. The 1914, 35-story Smith Tower building was the West’s original skyscraper.

The taverns and galleries, craft shops, rug merchants and booksellers of First and Second Avenues South offer some of the liveliest street-side action in the city.

On the first Thursday of every month, the art galleries of Seattle, including 10 or more in Pioneer Square, open their doors for the long-running, informal and locally popular “Gallery Walk,” which is free and open to all. Galleries close in the days proceeding Thursday to hang new shows, and then open from 6 to 8 p.m., and sometimes later, with the artists often on hand and sometimes wine, too.

Elliott Bay Book Company (First Avenue South at South Main) is one of the best and most inviting bookstores in the West. Readings occur almost every night except Sunday (often free, sometimes with a fee). And a cozy cafe downstairs offers quiet shelter for when your feet finally, ouch, wear out.

Times researcher Doug Conner in Seattle also contributed to this story.

GUIDEBOOK

Celebrating Seattle

Getting there: Alaska, American, America West, Delta, Northwest, United and USAir fly from LAX to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for about $290 round trip. Lower fares may be available on some airlines at some times.

The wet and the dry: Seattle actually gets less rain than Houston or Philadelphia. The trouble is, precipitation can fall in a gray drizzle that seems to last for months. June can be particularly frustrating. It’s summer everywhere, but the gloom can hang on here deep into the month, although this spring has been uncommonly dry so far. July and August typically are sunny, the daylight is long and temperatures sometimes quite warm. These months also are the most crowded. Autumn is sublime.

Where to stay: Though not especially cheap, it is possible to stay in the city and also avoid the dehumanizing bustle of the business and convention hotels. Arlington Suites at the Alexis Hotel downtown, 1007 First Ave., (206) 624-4844, offers kitchen suites with the feel of a fine house; $120-$130 double, $180-$200 for two bedrooms. The Inn at the Market, 86 Pine St., (206) 443-3600, is built and managed on an agreeably small scale; $100-$165 double, depending on view. There’s more moderately priced lodging downtown at the Camlin Hotel, Ninth and Pine streets, (206) 682-0100; $70-$109 double, and the Vance Hotel, Seventh and Stewart streets, (206) 441-4200; $81 double. Both are part of the West Coast Hotels chain; reservations, (800) 426-0670. Travel agents also recommend the Mayflower Park Hotel at Fourth Street and Olive Way, (800) 426-5100; $115 double. And the Pacific Plaza Hotel, 400 Spring St., (206) 623-3900; $74-$90 double.

The adventurous who are willing to seek reservations far in advance might consider a night aboard the beautifully restored floating tugboat Challenger, docked in Lake Union at the Yale Street Landing, 809 Fairview Place N., (206) 340-1201; $50 single to $125 for a queen double, including breakfast.

Reading: Two of the finest guidebooks are “Seattle Best Places” (Sasquatch Books, $11.95) and “Seattle Cheap Eats” (Sasquatch Books, $9). After all this eating, drinking and good outdoor exercise, romantics might feel the urge to overlook a silly title and take a glance at “Best Places to Kiss Northwest” (Beginning Press, $10.95). Seattle is proud of its colorful history, and a pleasant introduction is Murray Morgan’s “Skid Road” (University of Washington Press, $9.95).

People-powered rentals: Recommended outlets for canoes and rowboats: University of Washington Waterfront Activities Center, Montlake Boulevard behind Husky Stadium, (206) 543-9433. Sea kayaks: Northwest Outdoor Center, 2100 Westlake on Lake Union, $7 per hour for a single, $9 for a double. Wooden rowing and small sailing boats: Center for Wooden Boats, 1010 Valley St., (206) 382-BOAT. Bicycles: Gregg’s Greenlake Cycle, 7007 Woodland Ave. N.E., (206) 441-8144; $4 an hour or $25 a day.

For more information: Call or write the Washington State Tourism Division, P.O. Box 42500, Olympia, Wash. 98504-2500, (206) 586-2088.