Oregon Tourism and Travel Guide. Discount Portland Hotels Guide.

Oregon Tourism and Travel Guide. From Discount Portland Hotels to Great Destinations Like the Columbian River Gorge and More.

For 19th century pioneers, riding in covered wagons over the mountains and deserts of the arduous Oregon Trail, the Willamette Valley was the promised land. Rich and fertile the Valley became the home of the first settlements in Oregon and the Valley is still the heart of the social, political and cultural existence or Oregon. Portland Oregon, the biggest city, has a cozy European feel: Salem, the State Capital, maintains a smalltown feel and Eugene Oregon at the southern foot of the valley, is a likeable college town community.

East of Portland Oregon, waterfalls cascade down mossy cliffs along the Columbia River Gorge, south of which the twisting path of an old pioneer road leads through more beautiful scenery around Mount Hood. Central Oregon, and its increasingly popular recreational hub, Bend, is located on a high chaparral desert with sage and juniper trees and offers close access to the Southern Cascades, as well as numerous lakes and rivers dropping into striking canyons. Further south, around Grants Pass the major rivers drain to the Pacific, carving steep gorges and making for some excellent whitewater rafting, while the liberal hamlet of Ashland offers a dash of culture with its annual Shakespeare Festival.

Several highways link the Willamette Valley to the jagged coast, whose most northerly town Astoria, enjoys a magnificent setting strewn with imposing Victorian homes. South along the coast, wide and protected expanses of sand are broken by jagged black monoliths: white lighthouses look out from stark headlands and rough cliffs conceal small, sheltered coves. With its sand dunes, dense forests, and sheer variety, the coast is every bit as appealing as its Californian counterpart even if not as warm.

The rugged deserts and lava fields of Eastern Oregon are more remote and were only settled on any scale once the prime land in the west had already been taken. The settling process involved not only ferocious "Indian campaigns" but also the bitterly violent range wars between sheep-farmers and terrorist "sheep-shooters" associations of cattle ranchers. Sheep and cows now graze in peace, and some small towns still celebrate their cowboy roots with annual rodeos.
Portland Oregon
Having been spared the kind of aggressive, remorseless development that many Seattle residents have come to loathe, PORTLAND OREGON still retains a pleasant, smalltown feel, both for its well preserved Beaux Arts architecture and walkable urban core, as well as its laid back atmosphere. That said, there is not a lot to keep intrepid tourists here for more than a day, with most of the city's handful of major attractions located within close walking distance of each other on the short city blocks, half the size of most American cities. On the other hand, while Portland's unpretentious bohemian flavor may be lost on more gung ho travelers, Portland remains an excellent spot for casual visitors to slack around for weeks at a time, with a wealth of good diners, microbreweries, clubs, bookstores and coffee houses to keep you occupied.

The city was named after Portland Maine, following a coin toss between its two East Coast founders in 1845 Boston was the other option. Its location on a deep part of the Willamette River, just 78 miles from the Pacific and surrounded by fertile valleys, made it a perfect trading port, and it grew quickly, replacing its clapboard houses with ornate facades and Gothic gables. Nevertheless, throughout the nineteenth century it remained a raunchy, bawdy place, notorious for gambling, prostitution and opium dens. By the 1970s, Portland's historic buildings had decayed or were sacrificed to parking lots and expressways, but since then, it has salvaged what was left of its past, replacing concrete with red brick, and introducing folksy statues and murals. Although Portland Oregon's rehabilitation, along with its urban growth boundary to limit unrestrained development, has done much for the city's reputation worldwide, most residents are ambivalent about the praise and would prefer you move anywhere, preferably Seattle, but not here.
Portland Oregon - The City
The Willamette River divides Portland Oregon in half: the downtown area lies between the river's west bank and the I-405 freeway, forming the bulk of the city's southwest quadrant; the east is mostly residential. Surrounded by historic terracotta buildings downtown, Pioneer Courthouse Square is the indisputable center of Portland, its curving brick steps filled with music and people, and is named after the adjacent Pioneer Courthouse, a squat 1868 structure that still maintains its judicial function. Within easy walking distance are the city's leading theaters, museums and department stores notably Nike Town, 930 SW Sixth Ave., a flamboyant corporate theme store with high retail prices, a melange of old and new, where fading plasterwork and ceramic reliefs face concrete and glass, punctuated by small grassy parks.

Broadway epitomizes Portland Oregon's mix of early majesty and new wealth, with prestigious hotels sharing space with cultural institutions, such as the grand old Paramount theater, restored as part of the impressive Portland Center for the Performing Arts , at 1111 SW Broadway ( ). One block west, the Portland Art Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; $7.50; ) hosts touring exhibitions, plus a wide-ranging collection of Northwest Native American masks, Mexican statues and ancient Chinese figures - and recently acquired the modernist personal collection of critic Clement Greenberg, parts of which are on display intermittently. A block away, decorated with huge trompe l'oeil pioneer murals, the Oregon History Center, 1200 SW Park Ave Tuesday - Saturday 10a.m.-5p.m., Sunday Noon - 5p.m. $6.00, is primarily a research facility, but has some imaginative exhibits exploring different facets of the Oregon history. Between the museum and the history center run the South Park Blocks, a twelve block green belt and favorite Portland hangout, where retirees commingle with teen slackers and the homeless, all under the shadow of statues of Teddy Roosevelt riding on to victory at San Juan Hill and Abe Lincoln standing rigidly with a long, dark expression.

A five minute walk away, at the junction of Madison and Fifth avenues, is one of Portland's few notable architectural sights - Michael Graves Portland Building, a monumental concrete box with "ironic" blue ribbons. Several blocks east, Portland Oregon's riverfront has been rescued from a century of burial beneath wharfs, warehouses, and more recently, an express Highway. The area is now lined by another favorite urban oasis, the two mile long Tom McCall Waterfront Park created by demolishing the highway, where flocks of Canadian geese abound on the grass and young and old alike dash through the fountains of Salmon Street Springs. As a cheap and fun way to get wet, the springs are second only in popularity to the user friendly Ira Keller Fountain, a huge concrete water sculpture just west of the riverfront at SW Third and Clay streets. Further north, the small Yamhill Historic District is lined with 1890s buildings, and the Yamhill Marketplace built in 1982, SW second at Yamhill street, has a couple of produce stalls and cafés, though most of its interior has been turned into a gym.

Oregon Tourism, Portland Tourism and Portland Hotels Guides
Portland Oregon Tourism