Its that time of the year when you need to start planning your Spring Break!
Talking about Spring Break, celebrating Spring with a Tulip Bloom – how romantic and beautiful can that be!
When talking about Tulips, the first thing that comes to mind is the famous song from SilSila “Dekha Ek Khawab” and the famous gardens in Amsterdam…
If not Netherlands, you can definitely enjoy a romantic vacation in Skagit Valley, Mount Vernon Region.
Last year we spent four days in this beautiful neighborhoods of Seattle.
Day 0:
Flew into Seattle (Sea-Tac airport) on Wednesday night. Rented a car and drove for about two hours to Skagit Valley.
Driving in the night was a good decision as we could avoid all the traffic next day and optimize our time in the Tulip Town.
Day 1:
After breakfast, we started our day around 9.00 AM.
First stop was, visit to the beautiful flower gardens at Roozen Garden, owned by the Roozen family – bulb growers in Holland and the United States since the early 1700s.
Growing in their display Garden you will have the opportunity to witness 90+ tulip varieties in addition to many more varieties of daffodils, hyacinths, crocus, iris, & specialty flowers. Planted just behind the garden is a 15-acre tulip field filled with seemingly endless rows of color. This place was just mind blowing……the whole set will mesmerize you with its beauty.
Our next stop was Tulip Town. This was another Tulip farm near Roozen Garden. Beautiful blooms but one notch less than Roozen garden. I would recommend you first visit Tulip town.
The attraction in Tulip Town was the tractor ride (a tractor pulled trolley) around the fields for about 20 minutes. Our driver passed the time by explaining a bit about the business, how to plant bulbs, and the history of Tulip Town. The driver will stop about during the ride so everyone can get a few shots.
We spent most of our day in the tulip gardens.
Then we headed to La Conner Downtown.
This is a romantic waterfront village of La Conner, Washington. It welcomes travelers with a bustling local arts scene and bountiful opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. From hiking amidst the wildflowers of the Skagit Valley, to strolling through the myriad of in-town galleries. However when we reached the town around 5.00 PM most shops had closed down. Though we had a beautiful stroll near the waterfront and tried a local coffee shop on the waterfront.
After a long day we needed some sugar rush. We headed to Snow Goose Produce. This is a seasonal, family run, country market located on Fir Island in the Skagit Valley and offers the best organic produce and local fare such as fresh and smoked seafood, baked breads, artisan cheeses and carefully selected wines. Also this place offers 48 different flavors of ice creams made with all-whole all-real ingredients and served on their handmade immodest fresh waffle cones.
Remember to bring cash as they do not accept debit, credit or checks for ice cream.
Along the way, we had the opportunity to stop and see the Snow Geese as they were trying to make their way back to their Summer breeding grounds off the coast of Siberia on Wrangel Island. This was a sight in itself – thousands and thousands of geese flocking together!!!
That was the end of the wonderful day spent in the beautiful Skagit Valley.
There is a similar Tulip festival celebrated in Portland Oregon and the blooms shall last till early May.
Always call the farms before you plan your trip.
We then headed to Downtown Seattle and spent the night there.
Day 2:
We headed to Theo Chocolate Factory (just north of downtown Seattle). We had some time on hand before our tour started. So we decided to stroll along the jogging track across the street. Such a lovely walkway along the lake. We could spot cherry blossoms too. Seattle is a beautiful city indeed with different water bodies surrounded by lush green trees all around the city!!
We had booked a morning tour to Theo Chocolate Factory – a bean to bar chocolate maker. During factory tour they shall entertain you with the story of cocoa, including the amazing transformation of the cocoa fruit into chocolate! Best of all, you’ll get to try all of their amazing products!
The first half hour of the tour is seated, while the second half hour is a guided walking tour through their facilities where you’ll see where they make chocolate from bean to bar. Theo factory tours are $10 per person, include unlimited chocolate sampling, and last about one hour. Totally worth it. Loved their ginger, orange and red chili flake chocolates! Great souvenirs to bring back home and share with friends and family.
Post lunch we headed to Snoqualmie Falls,a 268 ft (82 m) waterfall on the Snoqualmie River between Snoqualmie and Fall City, one of Washington state’s most popular scenic attractions. Snoqualmie Falls is perhaps best known internationally for its appearance in the cult television series Twin Peaks. The drive to the falls itself was just mesmerizing……drizzling throughout the way, lakes all around surrounded by beautiful lush green valley……
The top of the waterfall is less than 100 yards (91 m) from the parking lot. The main views are from the side of the falls, with a fence separating visitors from the edge of a cliff. This area has picnic tables and benches, and a small grassy meadow called the Centennial Green. Here, the river trail descends 300 feet in half a mile passing though temperate rain forest with moss covered Bigleaf Maple, Douglas-fir, Sword Fern and Salal and places to step off the trail and rest or enjoy the scenery. At the bottom of the trail is the 1910 powerhouse (the world’s first completely underground power plant), not open to visitors, and a view of the falls. All of us enjoyed the beautiful views of the falls and the hike down the trail.
We spent the night in a close by neighborhood. Unfortunately we were too late to book the Salish inn and spa next door.
Day 3:
We were in the awe of the Snoqualmie area. And decided to come back and visit the NorthWest Railway Museum that included a Victorian depot. Museum is a great way for the kids to understand how railway changed everything and travel back in time to experience what travel was like before Interstate highways. Regularly scheduled trains run on Saturdays and Sundays, April through the end of October. Train takes you to the top of the falls. This ride was so much fun for the kids and adults.
Post lunch we headed to Pike Place Market (in Seattle Downtown), the mother of all farmers markets, and one of the best places to snack your way through a visit. Don’t forget to stop by at the World’s first Starbucks next door.
Next stop was Chihuly Garden and Glass an exhibit in the Seattle Center showcasing the studio glass of Dale Chihuly. The project includes three primary components: the Garden, the Glasshouse, and the Interior Exhibits. The art is just gorgeous and each room holds something new and different. Was the WOW factor of our day!
Next to Chihuly is the famous Space Needle which we decided to skip. You can buy tickets for both the attractions together.
Last spot on the agenda for the day was the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, nicknamed as the Ballard Locks. Ballard Locks provide a link for boats between the salt water of Puget Sound and the fresh water of the Ship Canal, which connects eastward to Lake Union and Lake Washington. Here you can enjoy watching the parade of sailboats, motorboats, tugs, barges and yachts passing through, as the locks’ water levels are adjusted to allow their safe passage.
Our day ended at Seattle Great Wheel. We had our lucky stars on and Seattle weather was just perfect to enjoy the waterfront. Beautiful night view of the city, lots of fun for the whole family.
Day 4:
We spend this day at Museum of Flights. Reached there around 10.00 AM and left around 4.00 PM as we had to board our flight.
Museum of Flight is a private non-profit air and space museum in South of Seattle.The exhibits encompass the history of flight and space exploration. They have model aircraft, a flight control tower, the history of Boeing (my favorite), and when you go outside you can go in The Concord and Air Force One.
What’s also neat is that it’s located on the Boeing Field airport property, so you’ll see active military planes, as well as all sorts of airlines from around the world, from brand ones getting prepped for final delivery to in-service planes arriving for a tune up.
There’s a huge exhibit with planes from WWI and WWII, with tons of information about some of the wars’ most important pilots. This could be of great interest to middle schoolers and adults too.
We could have easily spent couple more hours at the Museum…
That was end of lovely 4 day trip to beautiful scenic city of Seattle!
However on the wishlist we still have Olympic National Park, Mt Rainer National Park, Boeing factory tour.
If you have some interesting and fun facts from your Seattle trip do contribute to this blog!!!
Sneha Nice Descriptive detailed article thank you for sharing
Superb article Sneha. We have been to Seattle in 2000, but now looks like time to visit again. Thanks for your post.
Like as GCA does Ski Trip soon in near future KVites can have their own trip ….( just a thought)
Always enjoy reading your posts Sneha. Keep it up. Brings back memories of our short stay in Seattle – http://www.kutchvalley.com/2014/12/5355/5355
Hope to do another round to cover the spots from your post.
Lovely Article Sneha ! Brought back a lot of memories of our Seattle trip. On our trip we got a chance to visit the Boeing Factory. The tour is great and will definitely recommend a visit. They explain various details about their fleet construction and you get to see employees working on the various parts of the plane which was exciting .