Beneath Seattle + The London Plane

I've lived in Seattle the majority of my life, but somehow had never done an Underground Tour. My dad gave me a book about the history of Seattle's topography for Christmas, and it inspired my cousin and I to finally take the tour to learn more about our city!

If you have no idea what an Underground Tour is, I don't blame you. I had heard about it and had an idea of what it was... but let me share what I learned. 

After Seattle's great fire in 1889, the city essentially decided to level out what is currently downtown and build the new city up. Most of the ground floors of Pioneer Square's buildings are actually their second level. A Seattle Underground Tour takes you into basements of buildings to look at the original ground level and to see original sidewalks which are a level below what we walk on today. 

It was musty, but definitely worth checking out! There were a lot of visitors on the tour which is great, but I thought us locals could appreciate the history lesson more than someone unfamiliar with Seattle. For out of towners, I'd probably recommend visiting various neighborhoods like Alki in the summer, instead of doing this tour - but to each their own!

No visit to Pioneer Square is complete without brunch at The London Plane. We shared:

• Chrispy farro, roasted salmon, atchara, shaobing & a fried egg
• Messe of beet hummus, cashew romesco & sikil p'ak with bread & crackers
• Toast with spicy tahini creamed greens & a fried egg

I normally love their toasts (last summer they had a summer squash & avocado toast which was killer), but this time, it was good, but didn't wow me. Everything else was amazing, as expected!

Sitting on the second floor to get a birds eye view of the kitchen, florist shop and restaurant is a great way to start a morning!