"King Street Station itself is Seattle's Grand Central, even designed by some of the same men (and seven years earlier). It opened to the public in 1906, a palace of marble, granite, carved plaster, and chandeliers, blindingly gold and white. In the 1960s, it was altered and mangled, and when it needed seismic upgrades after the Nisqually earthquake in 2001, the railroad company that owned the building decided it wasn't worth the cost and in 2008 sold the whole station to the City of Seattle for 10 bucks. Five years and $46 million later, the Seattle Department of Transportation reopened the station in full historical form. Taking Amtrak is glamorous here." JEN GRAVES