After passing across the border from Washington to Oregon, we made our way to our next Airbnb, a bungalow situated in the suburb of Beaverton just outside of Portland. Not in the mood to navigate our way into town for dinner, I suggested we pick up dinner at the Worlds Best Grocery Store™️ Trader Joe's.
There was a lot more window shopping than buying done, but I picked up a spinach and artichoke dip to start, which actually wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped; TJ's Diner Mac & Cheese, and a rich chocolate ganache cake for dessert. Sorted.
Breakfast was also my own supermarket creation of avocado and hummus on toast, and we then set off to the train station to catch the train/tram hybrid to Washington Park.
Washington Park is home to Portland's Rose Garden which, whilst not in full bloom at the time of year we visited, would no doubt be spectacular when visited at the right time. One road over is the Japanese Garden. It's not cheap to get in, but provides a pleasant hour or so walking around in the zen like environment and lush greenery.
Also on the top things to do in Portland is Pittock Mansion, a stately home with views overlooking the city. The rooms are done up to reflect the time, and each room holds information about the family who lived there, so worth a visit if history is your thing.
Food is certainly my thing, and so that's what we heading for next, taking an Uber to Pearl Street. This street has heaps of cafes and restaurants, but we were drawn to Papa Haydns and its mouthwatering display of cakes.
For $10 a slice, you buy yourself a little piece of heaven, and so I chose the seasonal maple and walnut cheesecake along with a spiced apple cider. Pretty good, but we were in the food district and that certainly meant there was plenty more food to be had.
Our next stop was Blue Star Donuts which claims, along with a shop we would visit the following day, to be Portland's best donut shop. By the time we got there after lunch, their selection was very limited, with only five choices to be had, including the rather interesting maple bacon donut. I chose a buttermilk donut topped with a spicy passionfruit glaze which I couldn't bring myself to eat right then (as there was yet more food to come!) but enjoyed very much later that evening.
Of course cake followed by donuts is nothing without a bit of ice cream too, and so our last stop was Salt & Straw. Salt & Straw is famed for its unusual flavours, which were even more unusual than normal given that it was Spooky Season when we were there. This meant you could, if your heart so desired, treat yourself to an ice cream made with pigs blood, or why not one with crickets instead? Funnily enough, neither of these took my fancy, although I did still go for the strange flavours of Pear & Blue Cheese, and Olive Oil. Yum.
Finally having had enough food for the time being, it was time to get cultural, which meant walking to Powell's Books. Fun fact about me: I used to review books for a national newspaper! It would be an understatement to say that I love books, so finding myself in what looked to be the biggest bookstore in the world made me feel like a kid in a candy store. In fact, it was absolutely overwhelming. How on Earth could one choose a book from the millions they stocked there? Thank goodness I had a baggage allowance for my flight and no room for anything new, or else I would have left with armfulls of books.
It was at this point that I asked if we could see Portland. Having spent much of the day walking around, I still didn't feel like I had any idea of what Portland was actually about. We decided to take a walk down to the Waterfront towards Pioneer Square which, whilst pleasant, still didn't help me decipher exactly what was in Portland. I'd had it in my head that I was going to love Portland, but after my day in the city, wasn't sure if I would recommend it to fellow travellers. Perhaps we hadn't given it enough time, or just didn't see the best of what it had to offer, so I'd be very interested to hear thoughts from anyone else whose been there.
After my sweet day, I was craving something savoury for dinner, and so we headed to the Beaverton Food Trucks, most of which were unfortunately shut by the time we got there, but we found a saviour in the form of a BBQ shack, most of the contents of which we took back home to enjoy.
And so the weekend in Portland began, and of course that meant starting the day with food, and more specifically donuts. We drove into town towards Voodoo Donuts, very much a Portland staple for their voodoo doll shaped donuts oozing with jam. But we weren't there to buy voodoo donuts, nor any other item on their menu. We were there to eat ourselves.
Now, what many people don't know about Voodoo Donuts is that if you ask very nicely, rather than piping a voodoo doll onto the donut, they'll pipe you. Incredible. And so we walked away with a family of little donuts which looked a good deal like us. Incredibly delicious they were too, although I found I couldn't look at my donut as I was eating it at the thought of seeing blood red jam oozing out of my torso. Still, how freaking cool!
Much of the reason we'd come to Portland was to visit my brother who was living there at the time - he's not a city person so we fled the city as soon as we could and drove out to the Washington Coast.
We made our way towards Cape Disappointment, and as it was my family members manning the car, I can officially say that my family have driven me to disappointment. I've been waiting a long time to say that.
We hiked up the Cape to the lighthouse where we took a few photos before it started to rain, and then ran for the cover of the trees and made our way back down. I had no idea what our plan really was, or if there even was one, but we ended up heading across a long bridge and into Astoria.
Fort George was our destination for dinner, although we did have to wait almost an hour to be seated. Worth it? I'm not sure, but I did enjoy my kombucha on tap and veggie burger. And then, time to head off to somewhere altoghether different...
I hope you enjoyed today's blog! I'll be uploading even more American adventures shortly, so make sure to stay tuned to my Twitter @CiarasCountry and feel free to drop me a message in the comments for any recommendations of where I should visit next!
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