Two-Hour Tourist: Portland

My first impression of Portland, when I was there a few days ago to read at Powell's, was this: Portland is satisfyingly Portland, in the same way that Rome is satisfyingly Rome. Except that where Rome has its gelaterias; its ancient ruins; its manic drivers; its Gucci-wearing, impeccably coiffed, effortlessly glamorous passersby, Portland has its brew pubs; its green space; its fixed-gear bikes; its stripe-wearing, elaborately tattooed, calculatedly disheveled citizens.

There was a sad lack of flannel and beards at my reading,
though. Photo by Jessica Spiegel of WhyGo Italy.

I didn't have much time to be a tourist and see the sites, just a few hours. But it's not a big city, and I had a ringer to show me around, my awesome friend Celeste Brash, Lonely Planet guidebook writer, blogger extraordinaire, and all-purpose good company. She picked me up from the train station and said that she was working on a downtown Portland walking tour for an upcoming Lonely Planet book. Would I like to walk the route with her as she planned it out? Um, yes. Please.

I won't list everything we did and I won't reveal the particular walking route—obviously, I don't want to poach her guidebook material. But if and when you head to Portland, do go find the latest Lonely Planet and follow her suggestions. The itinerary really does make for an excellent introduction to the city, hitting the waterfront, downtown, and the three major food groups: beer, caffeine, and grease.

In the spirit of my earlier Two-Hour Tourist post, about Chicago, here's my own suggested list of things to do if you only have two hours in Portland.

First of all, get downtown. The Max light rail is your best way into the city from the airport, and to connect to various points around the city. It's always better to spend a limited amount of time exploring on foot and getting a snapshot of a particular area than trying to hop around the city by train or bus or car, seeing things only for a few fleeting moments. So: downtown.

Start your tour with some fortifications and a glimpse of a true stereotype-fulfilling Portland-ness at Voodoo Doughnuts. The line can be long—Celeste and I were there on a Friday around 3pm, and even then the queue ran out the door—but the time passes quickly because the scene offers some stellar free entertainment. There's the people-watching which is extraordinary—lots of the aforementioned stripe-wearing, elaborately tattooed, calculatedly disheveled citizens, plus all manner of other people whose attire and hairdos makes mild-mannered Midwesterners instinctively mutter, “That's interesting.” There's also the rotating case of doughnuts (like the rotating case that displays pies in an old-school diner), which include your standard raised glazed rings but also others covered in Fruit Loops or topped with bacon or filled with mango. There's a voodoo doll doughnut, naturally—a Long John with little appendages and filled with something red, served with a pretzel stick in lieu of a needle—and another called the Cock and Balls (not kidding and not asking for any more details). Throughout Portland, you see signs and bumper stickers that say, “Keep Portland Weird,” and Voodoo Doughnuts seems like the standard-bearer for that weirdness—and just to be clear, I love it so for that very reason.

And how are the doughnuts? Oh, right. Good question. They're outstanding: pillowy and not overly greasy or cloyingly sweet. If they'd been part of the Doughnut Quest a couple of years ago, I suspect they would have placed just behind the Doughnut Plant in terms of pure deliciousness. Plus, you know, style points for the performance-art bizarreness of the menu and a certain portion of the staff and clientele.

Moving on. Your appetite sated, waddle over to Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park for a stroll along the Willamette River. Sit on a bench and watch the parade of passersby. (Actually, what you should do is get your doughnuts to go and then eat in the park. I can think of no finer introduction to a city; in fact, without even planning it, when I'm in a new place, I somehow always find myself in a park eating a pastry.)

After you've gotten your fill of nature, wander back into downtown, through Pioneer Square—a public space that functions as the living room of the city—and end up at Powell's. You know Powell's, yes? The huge bookstore? It's … well, yes, huge. Enchantingly so, like an endless magical forest of books. They shelve both new and used books together, so there's a wonderful mix of literature from various eras, like at the library. Seriously, it's mesmerizing, the way the rooms and shelves and books just go on forever. The travel section alone is the size of many small bookstores (and since you asked, my book is in the “Travel memoirs—Europe” section …).

Your time is probably getting short now, so move along to one last stop. If you live in a major American city, you've probably noticed that food trucks are becoming, officially, A Thing. I don't just mean hotdog carts and jingle-blaring vans from which sketchy-looking dudes sell melting Bomb Pops. I mean mobile kitchens proffering actual food, restaurant-worthy food. Anyway, in Portland, food trucks are a genuinely big deal, more than just a passing trend. They're ubiquitous, and there are even some places around the city where there are five six or a dozen or more parked more or less permanently on an otherwise vacant lot, forming a food court far more eclectic and affordable and delicious than anything you'll find at even the most offbeat mall. I got some delicious tacos for $1.50 each, after considering other trucks proffering burgers and Indian curries and pad thai and crepes and—not making this up—escargot and foie gras. Yeah. From a food cart.

It's a weird and wonderful place, Portland. Truly.

Two-hour tourist: Chicago

I won't pretend that you can get any sense of a place in two hours, but sometimes that's all you've got. You're taking a road trip and have to keep moving, or you have an extended layover with just enough time to dash from the airport to the city to see one or two things.

The question is, what do you see? What one or two things are readily accessible and can be experienced in a short period of time (that is, no huge historic sites or ten-course tasting menus or all-day tours) but still offer something unique to that particular place?

Last weekend, I was in the Chicago area for my girlfriend's brother's wedding (congrats, Peter and Katie!). The day after the wedding, my girlfriend, Maren, and I took the train into the Chicago Loop and had about two hours to be tourists. There wasn't time to explore the neighborhoods. There wasn't time for a Cubs game.

For me, one of the must-sees in any city is the landmark park. They make for great people-watching, and there's something about the dichotomy of nature and surrounding urbanity that I find impossibly alluring. Central Park in New York, Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, Retiro in Madrid, and so on. (Come to think of it, one of my favorite things to do in any given city is to find a pastry shop and eat my gluteny goodness in that landmark park--and I've done so in each of the above parks.)

In Chicago, the lakefront area has two adjacent parks, Millenium Park and Grant Park, which are always crowded, even on a brisk, rainy fall afternoon. We opted for Millenium, because I wanted to see the famous Cloud Gate sculpture, popularly called the Bean because, indeed, it looks like an enormous, metallic bean, fit for consumption by some Brobdingnagian robot hiding behind the Hancock Building (Jerry Bruckheimer, you're welcome to that visual for your next movie--no charge). The last few times I've been to Chicago, the Bean or the park have been closed for various reasons, and I was starting to take it personally. But this time, there it was, open, uncovered, and just begging us to pose in front of it for roughly 2,531 photos.

If I can't think of any new topics for blog posts, I'm just gonna start
posting the other 2,530 photos one at a time.

Next stop: the Chicago Cultural Center, at the suggestion of my friend Charlie. Formerly a library, the building is now, well, a cultural center, with various exhibits and a cafe, not to mention a whole hell of a lot of really cool interior details--like, for example, the world's largest Tiffany art-glass dome. For starters. And glass mosaics like you'd expect in some sort of Nero-worthy Roman villa. Except it's all free and open to the public, and conveniently located just across Michigan Avenue from Millenium Park. As Maren and I wandered around, we could hear what sounded like some sort of Enya-esque calliope music reverberating throughout the building. Eventually, we tracked down the source: a public concert, in one of those mosaic-covered rooms, of a Javanese gamelan group. There were some twenty or thirty musicians in all, some playing xylophone-like instruments, some chanting, some hitting gongs. (And, it must be said, they were all conspicuously, emphatically white--it was as though some Chicago book club read Eat, Pray, Love, then all went to Bali to soak up some Eastern Spiritual Wisdom Stuff and, having achieved enlightenment, came back to Chicago to resume life as investment bankers who got together on weekends for gamelan jam sessions, just to relive those heady, magical days in Bali. Just guessing.)

As Javanese gamelan groups go, they were the best I've ever heard. Also the only ones. We headed out after one song. Back to the train station--by way of a bakery, of course.

And, honestly, I think that was a perfect two-hour tourist itinerary--two big, unique landmarks, some good people-watching, some cultural education. Plus a doughnut.

So now I'm trying to think of what I'd recommend for a two-hour tourist in other cities I know well. 

Minneapolis: Downtown riverfront. Walk along the Saint Anthony Falls History Trail, through Mill Ruins Park and across the Stone Arch Bridge. Read the various historic markers that explain how the city grew up right here, around Saint Anthony Falls. Get some coffee or a tea-infused cocktail on the patio at the Aster Cafe or some gelato at Wilde Roast. Go out on the endless bridge at the Guthrie Theatre. 

(UPDATE) Or ... Eat Street and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Eat Street is a roughly mile-long section of Nicollet Avenue lined with restaurants of every variety; the main stretch is centered at 26th Avenue and extends a couple of blocks up and down Nicollet. It's an eclectic mix of eats, a veritable United Nations: Caribbean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, German, Chinese, Mexican ... you name it. And there's a pretty wide price range in terms of price range and ambiance--if you want Vietnamese food, for example, you can choose between the hole-in-the-wall Jasmine Deli or the swankily modern, bistro-y Jasmine 26 (which has has bubble tea cocktails, and they're every bit as fantastic they sound). So grab a bite to eat. And then walk three blocks to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I know your time is waning, especially if you lingered over your food, but the MIA is free, so don't feel too bad about spending a limited amount of time there. The museum covers a full range of important art eras--not so different from any other big-city museum, to be honest, but it's still an impressive collection--but make a beeline for section dedicated to Prairie School design (I think it's on the fourth floor) for proof positive that the sense of place here in the Midwest is every bit as inspiring as mountains or the sea. 

Seattle: Pike Place Market. See the flying fish. Touristy as hell, it's true, but get over it. I, for one, will never get tired of watching those fishmongers toss massive salmons to each other like fish Frisbees, never dropping them, joking all the while. You'd probably have some extra time, though, and the surrounding areas of downtown Seattle aren't that interesting, although you could go walk around by the waterfront, even if it is rather covered up with piers and such in that part of town. 

Okay. Question for the masses. I have two hours in your hometown. Maaaybe three. Where should I go?