I guess I was expecting Portland to be a brash, young city, but it is not at all like that. Like any city it has its traffic jams and roadworks and, this being the USA, it has its high-rise downtown, but it is far more than this. Portland, "the City of Roses" doesn't hit you in the solar plexus; rather it gently massages the senses into submission. Each block adds a little to the experience, without any one thing grabbing you. And you leave feeling you have only begun to scratch the surface, wanting to return and to dig a little deeper.

The waterfront area along the River Willamette is a place to linger over lunch, the rose Test Garden in Washington Park, with its 661 varieties, a magnificent perfumerie. Shame we are not still there tomorrow, to watch the Portland Marathon, but we are back in Ashland, in Southern Oregon, for the weekend before heading further south on Monday to San Francisco.