Portland (Oregon)

Saturday, 23.06. Portland (0 miles)

It's raining! No, it's pouring when we get up just before half past eight. Unbelievable: it has been raining all night! We have breakfast delivered to our room, and the coffee gets some rainwater on the way across the parking lot. Just before 10, we give up the idea of finding better weather by driving to the surrounding area. We clicked on all internet pages with weather reports, hypnotized the Weather Channel on television - but we would probably have to go to Hawaii.

With the usual equipment of fleece and rain jackets, which we have been wearing for a week now, we set off, take the free tram to Pioneer Square and first save ourselves at Macy's, where I buy a new travel bag that can be folded up small and serves as a day bag so that I don't have to carry the big bag with all my luggage out of the car every day. The system has proven itself, only my small day bag is slowly falling apart and I need a new one.

We stroll through the shopping center at Pioneer Square and would have gone to the cinema if the movie didn't start at 1:20 pm. So we jump from store to store without buying anything and experience the sky clearing up at noon and feeling the sunshine for the first time after what feels like a thousand hours. 

That gives us the courage to move away from stores and we start walking down to the Willamette River and walk along the riverbank to the Saturday Market. 

The Willamette River is crossed by several bridges, some of them are drawbridges or railway bridges.

The Saturday Market is also open on Sunday, but today we are still on "Saturday" and there is a lot going on. It's more of a crafts market, with many food and beer stands - it smells very tempting everywhere and people stand and sit there and eat. I find a saddler who makes four more holes in my belt for free, and behold: the pants no longer slip!

We pass the old Oyster Bar, which has been run by the Wachsmuth family for five generations. 

On the next corner, someone preaches Christian values ​​like in Speaker's Corner, and across the street, about 60-70 people are waiting for donuts, whose "secret is in the hole". Well then! 

We skip the line, the calories, and the hole and continue walking through the historical quarter. Here are old warehouses and houses with quite beautiful facades. Shortly afterwards, we are in the Pearl District, which initially seems quite dead, as does Chinatown, where there were only 10 Chinese restaurants, but no usual hustle and bustle and collection of quirky shops - nothing like that.

We take the tram somewhere and take a 20-minute loop that takes us to Nob Hill. There are plenty of crazy people and homeless people, beggars, lunatics, and people on the fringes of society everywhere in Portland. 

We also sometimes have them in the tram... But it really gets funny when about 10 young people jump into the tram, recognizable as a team of a city hunt by the signs on their shirts. It's a scavenger hunt and the girls tell us they are from the San Francisco area and now have to visit 13 points in Portland in a maximum of 5 hours. The fastest team wins. Everyone is having a blast and is creatively dressed up. 600 of these teams are out and about in Portland for this Scavenger Hunt - from all over the USA!

We get off refreshed in the Pearl District and while G. is browsing in a shoe store, the world outside is falling apart. I have to protect even my backpack with its corresponding rain cape. We walk to the Deschutes brewery as the rain only becomes rain and no longer a deluge. 

Deschutes Brewery 

We are now in the brewery district and after a 25-minute wait, we get a table at the Deschutes Brewery. It's 3:30 pm and we haven't had any rain for about 3 hours during this cloudburst!

And while we enjoy a delicious meal, the weather continues to clear outside and we have almost clear skies when we come out after 5 pm. We walk past several of the typical food stalls that are so typical of Portland and reach Pioneer Square again.

At Tiffany's, we are initially looked at strangely by the security guard, but then let in. I find a nice silver necklace, G. does too, and we are the last customers to be released onto the street through the security gate just before 6:30 pm. Before we go to the cinema, we get a coffee that tastes extremely bad and ends up half-drunk in the trash.

Snowhite and the Huntsman is the movie of the evening. Lots of special effects and good entertainment. 

At Pioneer Square

At 10 pm, we catch the tram in our direction and are back at the hotel shortly afterwards. We open a bottle of wine that I bought at Safeway yesterday: a Syrah from the Columbia Valley! Strong aroma - so at some point, they must have sunshine here...