Location, location, location…if you’re looking for a hotel in Seattle, Washington, you couldn’t pick a much more central spot than the Inn at the Market.
After a day spent in the stale air of planes and airports, it was nice to step out in to the ocean-freshened air of Seattle. I love this city. There is so much brick and stained glass and history mixed up with art in unexpected places. I love the bits of neon, like the sign braced on top of the Pike Place Market, the endless coffee shops and the funky brick façade shops.
Arriving at the Inn at the Market put us smack dab in the middle of all of it. Coming on the light rail link from the airport, we got out at the Westlake stop and took a very short cab to the hotel. Arriving moments later, we realized we could have walked but it was nice not to schlep the bags. We might be traveling light but it’s still ‘stuff’.
We both did a double take when we arrived. This was the exact courtyard we had admired when we wandered through it earlier this year. In fact, Bacco’s, just around the corner, was the fantastic café where I’d previously raved about our breakfast.
One of the beauties of this travel-writing gig is my profoundly blissful ignorance of which hotel I’ve been booked into. Here we were…in the exact place we’d both loved.
But this time our trip schedule left us time for dinner and in that quaint little courtyard we found the French-style restaurant Cafe Campagne. Given that one of our ultimate goals is to one day live in France, it was a quick no-brainer as to where we’d eat dinner.
We both chose the prixe-fixe, a main plate of pan-roasted quail in an olive, roasted garlic and Muscat reduction. Kevin pronounced the wine list fabulous. He remembered one of the blog questions from his Wine and Spirits Education exam and ordered Beaujolais from one of the Cru villages. No wonder he passed. It was superb. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have to clean our dishes when they took them back to the kitchen.
Our view from our 7th floor room looked out over the market toward the ocean. In the morning, I felt like someone in a bad Ikea ad, as I unzipped pillowcase liners in my hunt for a label. I didn’t find anything but I’m going to get the scoop because I’ve just pronounced them the best pillows and duvet experience yet. I loved the bed too, but there’s a limit on the budget.
Maybe we just need to come down to Seattle more often, though who knows where I’ll be staying. Apparently I don’t.
