The Real Oregon

Home of Tonya Harding, Portland is the only real city in Oregon. It’s a place with much to love. You can get around most of the downtown very easily on foot or by public transportation. Portland is just big enough to be urban, still small enough — and Northwestern enough — to be friendly.

The city has an interesting art museum, which draws great traveling exhibits and has a decent permanent collection, though its flamboyant director, John Buchanan, has just fled to San Francisco. Best things to do downtown include a trip to Powell’s, a legendary used-book store; and dinner at Alexis, a Greek restaurant of some renown. The city has a pretty good zoo.

In early October each year, some 10,000 runners and walkers compete in the Portland Marathon, one of the most walker-friendly marathons in the world.

The Portland Art Museum has grown up in the past decade to join other bigger-city museums around the country in promoting blockbuster art shows, from Impressionists to — yes — Egyptian tomb art. Its best exhibits have grown out of the work of European curator Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, who, with the help of now-former executive director John Buchanan, has managed to raid the artistic attics of Europe and Russia for a series of opulent shows.