Portland

Day 1 · ~2.7 km

1. 

   1

   Veterans Memorial Coliseum

   Skidmore, Owings and Merrill's 1960 glass-box arena in the Rose Quarter, built on land cleared of Black Albina homes

   Morning · 20 min · free

   Walk around the outside to see the idea at work: a round concrete seating bowl set inside a glass box that stands on just four columns, so the city shows through the walls. Then stand on the plaza and picture the streets of houses that were here before it.

2. 

   2

   Steel Bridge

   A 1912 double-deck lift bridge whose decks rise separately, trains and a walkway below, MAX and cars above

   Morning · 30 min · free

   Cross on the lower-deck walkway, just above the water beside the railroad tracks, as the link between Waterfront Park and the Eastbank Esplanade. From the middle, look up at the upper deck, where MAX trains and cars cross on a span that lifts on its own.

3. 

   3

   Japanese American Historical Plaza

   Robert Murase's 1990 riverside memorial, with poetry stones, boulders for the ten camps and a row of cherry trees

   Morning · 20 min · free

   Walk it from south to north: past the stones honoring the Issei, the first immigrants, to the large boulders at the center that stand for the ten camps, reading the short poems carved into the granite on the way. Come back in spring when the row of cherry trees is in bloom.

4. 

   4

   White Stag Sign

   The rooftop neon Portland Oregon sign with the leaping stag, first lit in 1940, city-owned since 2010

   Evening · 15 min · free

   Come after dark and walk west across the Burnside Bridge toward it, or look up from Waterfront Park just north of the bridge, when the outline of the state, the stag and the words Portland Oregon are lit. In the Christmas season the stag's nose glows red.

5. 

   5

   Portland Chinatown Museum

   The story of Portland's Chinatowns since the 1850s, with an herbalist's shop and a Chinese opera scene re-created

   Midday · 60 min · $

   Walk through Beyond the Gate, the permanent exhibition, where re-created scenes such as an herbalist's shop and a Chinese opera stage, oral histories and short animated films follow Portland's Chinese community from the 1850s to today. Then look into the front galleries, which show contemporary Asian American artists.

6. 

   6

   Lan Su Chinese Garden

   A walled Suzhou-style garden built by craftsmen from Portland's sister city on a Chinatown block, opened in 2000

   Morning · 75 min · $

   Arrive at opening and walk slowly around Lake Zither, past the Lake Tai rocks, the covered walkways and the boat-shaped pavilion, reading the poetry panels as you go. Finish with a pot of tea in the Yun Shui Teahouse, inside the two-story Tower of Cosmic Reflections.

7. 

   7

   Japanese American Museum of Oregon

   A museum of Oregon's Nikkei in the old Japantown, from the first immigrants through the 1942 incarceration to today

   Midday · 60 min · $

   Walk the galleries in order: the Issei who came from Japan and built lives in Oregon, the Japantown that filled these streets, the wartime removal of 1942, and Nikkei life today. Then walk down to the river to the Japanese American Historical Plaza, the memorial the same community created in Waterfront Park.

8. 

   8

   Union Station

   The 1896 railroad station with a tall clock tower and Go By Train neon, where Amtrak still stops

   Evening · 20 min · free

   Walk up NW 6th Avenue at dusk to see the Union Station signs glowing on the clock tower and the Go By Train neon flashing in sequence, then step inside the station's waiting hall.