Thursday, July 7, 2011

Portland - Quite Possibly the Ultimate City?

After 4 nights in Portland - we can safely say - that it is the ultimate city.  Do believe the hype.  It did help that the sun shone warmly while we were there (only does for 3 months of the year apparently).  Here are a few rose tinted shots.  Trees, flower pots, regenerated/converted spaces, good industry based 'junk' and workwear everywhere - and it wasn't overpriced.  Its called the Rose City - and even their famous Rose Garden was cool.  And they celebrate it in a cool way (i.e. young people buy into the 'rose city' label and marketing). You get the feeling it is the 20 - 30 year olds that are shaping the city, rather than the 60+ gardeners.  Either they are in charge, or they are getting listened too.  Hint hint ChCh!!  If we can look and feel like this in 20 years, I'll still love Christchurch.
This corner building reminds me of ChCh...sniff sniff...


Roses everywhere...
Decent flower pots.

Sustainability is king!
Wild parks in the middle of the city - designed to clean the waterways and a contaminated site.
 Formal tributes to the past, and to the horticultural strength of the city.
And there was even a tennis court in the middle of the rose gardens
 Moose head at Filson - the hunting shop
 
And little reminders on of the timber, logging, hunting living and past heritage of surrounding Oregon.
It just smacked good living everywhere you went. Food post to come next!

1 comment:

  1. Glad you dug the rose city ambience - no small wonder that so many of our mates have followed the wagon ruts south to portland :)

    ReplyDelete