Seattle & Port Townsend, Washington State
By Cantrail coach to Seattle WA; one night good, two nights better; Pike Place Market; not anti-Starbucks per se; Mayflower Park Hotel and vesper martinis at Oliver’s Bar; seafood dinner at The Athenian; Travel Mode and padkos; heading to the Olympian Peninsula; delightfully historic Port Townsend; onwards to Twilight country: Forks and La Push
It’s not just trains and planes, boats bikes and cars that feature on Travels with Verne and Roy. Now it’s coaches, too!
Having kindly hosted us in Vancouver for ten days, cousin Brad and Ingrid dropped us off at Vancouver train station to catch the 11.30am Cantrail coach to Seattle. (Click here, here and here to see what a great time we had with them in Victoria B.C., Gabriola Island and Vancouver City respectively.)
There’d been various options for travelling from Vancouver, Canada south to the USA, and the coach turned out to have been a great decision. Around $55 each (half-price for those moderately advanced in years, thank you very much!), the four-hour journey was not only comfortable but excellent value, too.
What’s more, compared to the individual cars waiting in line to clear immigration at the US border, our coach – the only one at the time – completed formalities in double-quick time.
We were first off the bus for immigration (or rather, Roy was, me trailing in his febrile wake) and so first through a smooth and friendly immigration clearance from two nice young men.
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A Night in Seattle WA
In retrospect, two nights would have been better, in part because main attractions like Pike Place Market open only at 10am and start winding down mid-afternoon.
