Just a muddy little logging community when picked as Washington's territorial capital in 1853, OLYMPIA has never really become the metropolis its founders had hoped, instead continuing to remain somewhat a backwater locale despite government efforts to spruce it up. Its downtown area is small, with a few blocks of stores and restaurants presided over by the neo-Romanesque Old Capitol at Seventh Avenue between Washington and Franklin, home mainly to bureaucratic offices. Nevertheless, it's quite a busy little town, with state employees knocking around during the day and students from the Evergreen State College, a popular liberal arts school, pepping up the nightlife. There's a well-established Farmers' Market downtown at 401 N Capitol Way (AprilDec weekends, and occasional weekdays; www.farmers-market.org ), north of which is a boardwalk with some decent places to eat .

The state offices are arranged around neat lawns on the Capitol Campus , just south of downtown. It's worth taking a tour of the imposing neoclassical Legislative Building (daily 10am3pm; free; www.ga.wa.gov/visitor ) completed in 1928 after more than three decades of work, if only to wonder at the sheer energy of the pioneers who set out to construct a close replica of the Capitol building in Washington, DC, in what was then a backwoods on the far side of the continent. Eight blocks south, the small State Capitol Museum , 211 W 21st Ave (TuesSun 10am4pm, weekends opens at noon; $2; www.wshs.org/wscm ), juxtaposes a restored dining room with displays of Native American basketwork and local natural history.

A short drive south of Olympia, tiny TUMWATER was Washington's first pioneer community, settled in 1845 by a group that included Bing Crosby's grandparents. Its name comes from the tumbling water of the Deschutes River, which is still used at the Olympia Brewery , Schmidt Place and Custer Way off I-5 exit 103 (tours MonSat 9am4.30pm; free). As the last remaining national brewery in the region (ironically producing Rainier and Henry Weinhard brews, two of its former rivals, which were swallowed up by current owner Miller Beer), the Olympia complex overlooks Tumwater Falls , now part of a park but once a rich salmon-fishing site for the Nisqually tribe.