Our Honeymoon: Portland, Oregon (Part 5)

The final day of our honeymoon was action packed!

We started the day bright and early at the Portland Farmers Market at Portland State University. The campus was so pretty and the market was great, so many vendors. I wish we had a market of this quality closer to home.

Just a taste of what the market had to offer:

Best breakfast ever (a fresh pretzel roll and local Pink Lady apple):

John was super excited about getting these local hazelnuts.

Next up was the Portland Saturday Market. This turned out to be a huge letdown. I was expecting something similar to SoWa (here at home) but it ended up being a ghetto “market” in the part of town when the bums congregate.

We hit up a few more food trucks for lunch. I went to Sonny Bowl (and got the brown rice, kale, BBQ soy with crunchy noodles) and John got an enormous burrito. So good! I love food trucks!

Then we headed to Pittock Mansion, home the Pittock family who were among the early pioneers of Portland. We actually got a two for one admission Groupon a few weeks before our trip. The mansion was really nice and gorgeously maintained.

The lovely interior:

My favorite thing about the whole mansion was this scene. Two pieces of hilarious “art” that happened to be right next to each other: a weird portrait of a moody cat next to a sculpture of a guy inspecting at his foot. Um, seriously?! I’m still laughing at this. I was in convulsions when I saw it in person. It’s just so weird.

Views of Portland from the backyard of the mansion:

Me at the mansion:

Afterward we headed to the McMenamins Kennedy School. The Kennedy School was an elementary school in the early 1900’s. McMenamins renovated it into a hotel, restaurant, brewery, movie theater, and public pool. All in one building! So cool, right?

Fun fact: McMenamins is a huge name in Portland. They own over 60 brewpubs, microbreweries, clubs, and theaters in Portland. They are everywhere.

We had some time to kill so we tried a sampler of McMenamins beer that’s brewed in the brewery on site.

It was all very good but we fell in love with the Ruby Ale (a raspberry beer). Too bad I can’t find it anywhere for purchase here or online! :(

Onward to another brewery! We arrived at the Hopworks Urban Brewery and took their 4PM tour. It was extremely informative and, while I wasn’t a huge fan of their hop-based beers, we became huge fans of the brewery and staff.

We were even served beer right out of the tank!

The last stop, and final meal, of our honeymoon was at The Firehouse. It’s a renovated old fire station nestled in an adorable and quiet neighborhood in Portland.

I had some great fried cauliflower and the house specialty margherita pizza.

That night we headed back to the hotel on the early side to pack for our 6AM flight home to Boston.

The next day we were on a flight back to Boston. The flight, might I add, was much more enjoyable than our flight to Portland. We had a whole row to ourselves and watched most of Community season 2. It was awesome.

Overall, Portland and Astoria were as amazing as I’d always hoped and dreamed they would be. Oregon felt like home which is always what we strive for when we travel. The food was amazing, the people are great, the landscapes were beautiful, there was so much to do, there were equal parts of the city and nature to explore, and it was just the perfect location to celebrate being newlyweds. John and I both agreed we could totally live there. It’s probably too far outside the realm of reality to really think about moving across the country but we can visit anytime we want. I am so excited to go back!

I hope you enjoyed our honeymoon adventure, that’s all folks!