Trip report - 3 day weekend in Portland (hotel, neighborhood)

[SkyDog77]

My wife and I just spent a 3 day weekend in Portland. Neither of us had ever been before but it had been on our list for a while.

We’re late 30’s/early 40s and love good beer, good coffee and good food.

We took the Red Line from the airport, which was a piece of cake, and stayed at The Nines hotel downtown.

General impression of the city: Very manageable, love the density. It does remind me of Denver in a lot of ways, but honestly it felt as big or even slightly bigger than Denver even though the metro area is ~15% smaller in population. Everyone mentions the homeless problem and it is definitely quite noticeable downtown. Denver has its own homeless issue, but it seemed a little bit worse in Portland. We weren’t out too late at night and it never felt unsafe to us in the areas we visited. There are definitely a good amount of sketchy/crazy folks about, but they weren’t in your face.

We got in town late Friday morning and went for a late breakfast at Mother’s Bistro. We found a couple open seats at the bar and really enjoyed the food and the French Press coffee. You can do half orders of a few of their dishes so we tried quite a few different plates. The breakfast nachos stood out.

We ended up walking around downtown and stumbled upon the Pine Street market. We had ramen at the bar and it was delicious. They also had Yamazaki whiskey so I was happy.

After dinner we went to Cascade Brewing. This is a must stop for sour beer fans. We brought a bottle home.

Saturday was packed!

We got an early start and walked over to get a coffee at Stumptown Roasters at the Ace Hotel. The coffee was great. This ended up being our second favorite coffee shop of the 8 we tried. We followed this up with breakfast at Cheryl’s On 12th. The Yelp reviews raved about the breakfast fried rice. I thought it was pretty average. Wouldn’t go back for that. My wife had a French toast casserole. That was pretty good.

After breakfast we took the train over to Washington Park. There is a free shuttle from the train to get you around the park. We stopped at the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden. The Japanese Garden was amazing. We walked the entire area. It’s stunning. There is a fee, i think it was around $18 a person, but totally worth it.
The rose garden was really cool as well.

After taking the train back, we used the Lime electric scooters and rode over to East Portland across the bridge for lunch and a couple breweries. We had lunch at Modern Times. We’ve been to their San Diego location, but they have a bunch of PDX only beer at this location. The menu is vegan forward and very tasty.

After lunch we walked over to Rogue. We got a couple more scooters and made our way over to the Irvington neighborhood. Saint Simon coffee was quite good and the neighborhood was cool to ride the scooters through.

We caught a Lyft back downtown and rested for an hour and a half before dinner at Clyde & Common. Highly recommended! The goat cheese plate was very good. We were exhausted after dinner and called it a night.

Sunday morning we decided no heavy breakfast so we ended up getting scooters again and hitting a few different coffee shops. Hands down our favorite was Coava. Very “Portland” atmosphere and the coffee was killer. The corn meal scones are really good as well. From there we stopped at a couple other coffee shops. They were alright, but nothing mind blowing.

We had time for lunch after that before heading to the airport and stopped for oysters at Southpark Seafood. They had a nice selection of raw oysters and the two sides we had, Brussels Sprouts and fries, were both well done.

Overall, we really enjoyed the weekend. Overall it’s a very tourist friendly city with great dining and shopping options. The only downsides for us were the very large homeless population and the trash that seemed to be strewn everywhere by the homeless campsites. It’s so visible from the train as you ride to the airport.

Thanks for a great weekend Portland. I’m sure we’ll be be back again.

[SkyDog77]

Almost forgot to mention that we did a tour of the Shanghai Tunnel as well. That was fun and very interesting. I had no idea what it meant to “get Shanghai’d” before!

[bostonguy1960]

Thanks for your perspective!

[Scorpion3510]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

My wife and I just spent a 3 day weekend in Portland. Neither of us had ever been before but it had been on our list for a while.

We’re late 30’s/early 40s and love good beer, good coffee and good food.

We took the Red Line from the airport, which was a piece of cake, and stayed at The Nines hotel downtown.

General impression of the city: Very manageable, love the density. It does remind me of Denver in a lot of ways, but honestly it felt as big or even slightly bigger than Denver even though the metro area is ~15% smaller in population. Everyone mentions the homeless problem and it is definitely quite noticeable downtown. Denver has its own homeless issue, but it seemed a little bit worse in Portland. We weren’t out too late at night and it never felt unsafe to us in the areas we visited. There are definitely a good amount of sketchy/crazy folks about, but they weren’t in your face.

We got in town late Friday morning and went for a late breakfast at Mother’s Bistro. We found a couple open seats at the bar and really enjoyed the food and the French Press coffee. You can do half orders of a few of their dishes so we tried quite a few different plates. The breakfast nachos stood out.

We ended up walking around downtown and stumbled upon the Pine Street market. We had ramen at the bar and it was delicious. They also had Yamazaki whiskey so I was happy.

After dinner we went to Cascade Brewing. This is a must stop for sour beer fans. We brought a bottle home.

Saturday was packed!

We got an early start and walked over to get a coffee at Stumptown Roasters at the Ace Hotel. The coffee was great. This ended up being our second favorite coffee shop of the 8 we tried. We followed this up with breakfast at Cheryl’s On 12th. The Yelp reviews raved about the breakfast fried rice. I thought it was pretty average. Wouldn’t go back for that. My wife had a French toast casserole. That was pretty good.

After breakfast we took the train over to Washington Park. There is a free shuttle from the train to get you around the park. We stopped at the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden. The Japanese Garden was amazing. We walked the entire area. It’s stunning. There is a fee, i think it was around $18 a person, but totally worth it.
The rose garden was really cool as well.

After taking the train back, we used the Lime electric scooters and rode over to East Portland across the bridge for lunch and a couple breweries. We had lunch at Modern Times. We’ve been to their San Diego location, but they have a bunch of PDX only beer at this location. The menu is vegan forward and very tasty.

After lunch we walked over to Rogue. We got a couple more scooters and made our way over to the Irvington neighborhood. Saint Simon coffee was quite good and the neighborhood was cool to ride the scooters through.

We caught a Lyft back downtown and rested for an hour and a half before dinner at Clyde & Common. Highly recommended! The goat cheese plate was very good. We were exhausted after dinner and called it a night.

Sunday morning we decided no heavy breakfast so we ended up getting scooters again and hitting a few different coffee shops. Hands down our favorite was Coava. Very “Portland” atmosphere and the coffee was killer. The corn meal scones are really good as well. From there we stopped at a couple other coffee shops. They were alright, but nothing mind blowing.

We had time for lunch after that before heading to the airport and stopped for oysters at Southpark Seafood. They had a nice selection of raw oysters and the two sides we had, Brussels Sprouts and fries, were both well done.

Overall, we really enjoyed the weekend. Overall it’s a very tourist friendly city with great dining and shopping options. The only downsides for us were the very large homeless population and the trash that seemed to be strewn everywhere by the homeless campsites. It’s so visible from the train as you ride to the airport.

Thanks for a great weekend Portland. I’m sure we’ll be be back again.

My wife and I just got back from a 4 day trip there. Your trip sounded very similar to ours! Overall, Portland is a great little city.