A short drive from Portland are the gorgeous Multnomah Falls. Its two steps combined result in a drop of 189 m (620 ft), making it the second tallest year-round waterfall in the United States.

Footbridge over the lower cascade.

We hiked up to the top of the upper falls. Well, it wasn’t really hiking: The path was paved and it didn’t even take 30 minutes to get up.

The manual controls on our Panasonic Lumix LX100 came in really handy for taking these soft water pictures.

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All we knew so far about Portland, Oregon, we knew from the satirical TV show Portlandia. According to the show, Portland is every hipster’s dream, a place where you can ask for the last name of the chicken you’re about to order in an all-organic restaurant (probably with a side of massaged kale, fair-trade quinoa or turnip from a local farm), a heaven for pedestrians and cyclists.

It wasn’t that bad, though. Quite on the contrary, we experienced Portland as a refreshingly relaxed, unpretentious yet quirky, creative, environmentally conscious city. Where else do you find a mayor who had his private parking space in front of the city hall transformed into a garden and now takes public transport like everyone else?

Microbreweries, Voodoo Doughnuts and Food Carts

Portland was indeed a great city to begin our 5-month-adventure on the road. Especially because the roads we encountered there were pedestrian-, bike- and skateboard-friendly (skateboards used to have their designated lanes on the streets!), covered in red bricks.

Portland was also a great starting point not just because of the city’s 50+ microbreweries that take advantage of the great water and the excellent hops production, but also because one of Portland’s top attractions is, in fact, a donut store. Voodoo Doughnuts has donut variations that blow up your imagination: donuts with fruit loops, cookie dough balls, oreos or strips of bacon on top; an “Oh Captain! My Captain!” donut, an Old Dirty Bastard donut, the options are endless… Our clear favorite was the Portland Cream one, basically a regular donut filled with vanilla cream and chocolate glaze on top.

Of course, we didn’t miss out on the microbreweries either: We enjoyed a beer flight at Deschutes Brewery.

All parts of Portland are dotted with food carts, typically tiny trailers with one or two windows and a fully equipped kitchen inside, where tacos, thai food, gyros, ramen bowls, waffles and other delights are prepared.

Now you think all we did was eating and drinking. You’re right. But in addition to that, we also spent hours and hours walking (for example during Portland’s award-winning Walking Tour) and strolling through the City of Books, a gigantic bookstore that takes up a whole block. We’ve never seen so many people in a bookstore, let alone such a large bookstore. It has a color-guidance system, just as in hospitals, so you don’t get lost and kind of keep a sense of where you are. This helped a lot when we tried to find our way out after buying Jan a Spanish Grammar and a Latinamerican Spanish Vocabulary book. ¡Dios mío!

We stayed at the Evermore Guesthouse, an incredibly beautiful historic building from 1909, where we had breakfast every morning at the community table in the living room of the house, together with other guests who stayed there.

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