Pike Place Public Market and Gum Wall in Seattle, Washington

I wanted to share a few snaps from my visit to Pike Place Market and the Gum Wall in Seattle, Washington. Scott and I visited last month, and all in all Seattle was one of our favorite places to visit together. Although it was cold (which was expected), we loved that our hotel was a few blocks away from the market, making it easy to take a stroll down to Pike Place, grab a bite to eat, enjoy the fresh air and peruse the variety of merchants and vendors.

The last time I visited was years ago when I was a child, so I was definitely excited to come back as an adult. Pike Place Market overlooks the Elliott Bay Waterfront and has stalls upon stalls of fresh produce, flowers, seafood, gourmet +artisanal foods, craft goods and so much more! Pike Place which opened in 1907 is one of the oldest operating public farmers' markets in the United States and is a very popular tourist attraction. I was in awe of the numerous dried flower bouquet vendors (which I looked into more and it seems that they only sell these dried flowers during the winter months), and of course there's the Pike Place Fish Market where you'll see the fish being thrown around (but only when someone buys fish and I saw that they ship overnight via UPS). See all of the Pike Place Market merchants and services here; they're unveiling the Pike Place MarketFront in June 2017 which will be an expansion of the market surrounded by stunning views of Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains.

PIKE PLACE MARKET

1st Ave and Pike St., Seattle, WA 98101

General Market Hours

Breakfast: 6 am
Fresh Produce & Seafood: 7 am
Official Market Bell: 9 am
Crafts Market: 10 am-4 pm
Farm Tables: 8 am-4 pm
Merchant Hours: 10 am-6 pm
Restaurants: 6 am-1:30 am; varies

The Market is open 363 days a year, closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

The Gum Wall, which was actually cleaned in 2015 for the first time after 20 years (taking about 130 hours to complete removing 2,350 pounds of gum), didn't stay clean for long as the wall was back to being covered in gum in a matter of one weekend. Upon my recent visit, the gum covered bricks seem to span all the way down Post Alley which is located underneath Pike Place Market. Scott and I didn't add to the gum wall but it was interesting to see the amount of gum covering the walls, various gum designs and visitors vigorously chewing gum to add to the wall. One of the first things that can come to mind is ew that gum has been in someone's mouth and is unsanitary, so we just made sure not to get too close to the wall (and you can definitely smell the bubblegum flavors in the air). I found this time-lapse video of the removal of the gum from the Seattle Times website, check it out below.