What Are They Saying About Us? LA Gay Culture Reviews Gay Portland, Part One
[This is Part One, posted on June 22, 2010.] [Jump to Part Two.]
Oh Portland, Portland, Portland.
LA gay culture recently visited the famed city of the Pacific northwest, better known as P-town or PDX, and in the first of a 3-part series profiling the greenest city in America, LA gay culture will highlight the best of the best of the greatest little big city that over half a million Oregonians call home.
Incorporated in 1851, beautiful verdant Portland lays surrounded by rolling mountain, tree and river. With Mt. Saint Helens carefully watching the city from the northwest, along with her brother, the abrupt and daunting Mt. Hood stealing the horizon at the east, Portland is a city that nurtures and honors the outdoors. Literally split in half by the Willamette river, one of the few rivers in the world to run upstream where it converges with the equally famous Columbia river, the city is divided into five main sections: Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, Southeast and finally North Portland.
The #1 city in America for bike riding (outdoors Portland coming at the end of the week), nearly every street has its own bike lane, and the bike paths that traverse the city are numerous, wondrous and pass through spectacular vistas of both urban and natural oasis.
Cheap (or at least much more affordable than other famed U.S. travel hot-spots) and extremely and surprisingly gay and gay friendly (more on that later), Portland is a short distance away, accessible to Angelinos via either train or air (Alaska Airlines being the superior carrier merging our city of angels with Portland, the city of coffee and green).
If looking for amazing food (try Clyde Commons or amazingly delicious Mother’s), the best coffee (yum Stumptown) or a city block full of books (Powell’s bookstore, the largest privately owned bookstore in the world, yes even larger than Strand in Manhattan), Portland is your place.
Check out the 2nd in the series highlighting Portland, the best little green city in America, as LA Gay Culture continues tomorrow with: Gay Portland.
Tags: Clyde Commons, Mother's Bistro, Stumptown, Travel
