Nancy's Guidebook

Forest Park is one of Portland’s Crown Jewels. It is unsophisticated but mature, loved and gives back to its visitors in every season. Be you a walker, runner, hiker, naturalist, birder or city dweller, you will find new opportunities to enjoy its serenity. It can be busy but rarely crowded throughout the day. For the ambitious hiker, from our place you can hike up through the rose garden to the arboretum, stop and see the redwood observation deck, then along the Wildwood trail, go down across the bridge over Burnside street, then up to the Pittock mansion to catch stunning city and mountain views. (WC) From there, at about 3.5m, return by switch backing hillside streets of lovely Kings Heights homes (next to the gatekeeper's house, take NW Pittock Drive to the vehicle block at NW Monte Vista Terrace) and seek out your favorite route down back to W Burnside and SW Vista (5.25m) Or for the more ambitious, return to the Wildwood trail and descend through a massive hillside of timber of Macleay Park to the NW Cornell Road where (0.2m detour to your west) you'll find the Portland Audubon Society (WC) and Pittock Bird Sanctuary. Picking back up the Wildwood trail across Cornell, you are mostly descending to the Balch Creek but have several routes from which to choose depending on how far you want to go. Wildwood converges with the Lower Macleay Trail then, at the Witches Castle (freaky burned out stone house), you can choose to venture up the Wildwood a bit more or take the Lower Macleay trail down along Balch creek to the Lower Macleay trailhead (0.8m). At the trailhead, you can take the staircase up to NW Thurman or walk up NW Upshur, either way will land you counting down the cross streets to 23rd, near the end of the alphabet district. Cafes, boulangeries, pubs, a food pod, pizza parlors and various eateries abound nearby to offer you sustenance. (at almost 7 miles, you've earned it). New Seasons Market is also near to offer you a full service grocery and market. From NW 23rd and NW Thurman, it is just a (mostly) flat mile back to ours.

Places you might not want to miss.

Fabulous cafes and eating establishments are an easy walk from our place. Our favorite cafes include Cafe Umbria (1/4m), Fehrenbacher Hof (1/4m), Elephant's Delicatessen (1//4m), Ken's Artisan Bakery (1/2m), and St. Honoré Bakery (1m). For weekend brunch, head over to Harvey Milk street, near Powell's books. From there you can choose from Kenny & Zuke's Jewish Deli, The Roxy, Cheryl's (12th & Washington), Urban Creperie (SW Morrison/13th), and many more. Dessert-y places over there are Petunia's Pies and Pastries, Ruby Jewel ice cream, and Saint Cupcake. Over on the north side of W Burnside in the Pearl District, there are too many to mention but our dinner mainstays are Andina with their Sacsayhuamán (say SexyWoman) cocktail, or Piazza Italia, then Cool Moon Ice Cream. In the alphabet district, you cannot go wrong with brunch at Nell's (< 1m), but make a reservation. We cannot forget to mention all the wine bars, (eg. Bar Diane, Pope House) or brewery's (Kells', McMenamin's) along NW 21st and 23rd street, and the smaller, niche and less showy restaurants. Opportunities abound close to ours. If you take the MAX out to Beaverton, you have some great options as well. If you are on foot, get off at Beaverton Central and you will be close to many great suburban options there at the Beaverton Round. All that said, we can say all this and more for east side restaurants in areas around N Williams, NE Alberta and SE Hawthorne. I'd advise you to look at current online reviews because there are happening places popping up all the time and we do not have our fingers centered on pulses there.

Runs that can double as hikes.