By Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With less than a week to see dramatic rugged coastlines, lush rainforests, mountain ranges including glaciers and volcanoes, stunning waterfalls, acres of colorful tulips and three unique cities, our travel itinerary to the Pacific Northwest featured zero downtime.
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Few places in the country jam as much geographic diversity, culinary delights and cultural and historic interest as Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia. We designed our mini-adventure to include Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and nearby surrounding areas.
We planned our visit during the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival during the month of April in Mount Vernon, Washington. This festival draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the vibrant bloom of tulips across several farms in the Skagit Valley region. It’s much closer than the iconic tulip fields in the Netherlands and can be worked into a longer trip to the region.
Since there were no direct flights from St. Louis to Portland, it took more than seven hours of travel time just to get from airport to airport. Our return trip took even longer due a layover in Dallas.
That left us five full days to cram in as much sightseeing, hiking and eating as possible. For travelers who prefer this style of intense vacationing, these are some highlights from each area worth a visit. It’s hard to do justice to this entire region in such a short span of time, but for those constrained by budget and vacation days, who want to focus on both natural splendor and city life, it’s possible to maximize the potential of a shorter visit. It required planes, trains and automobiles to make it happen.
Here’s how we did it:
Oregon trails
The Columbia River gorge is a river canyon, 80 miles long and up to 4,000 feet deep, outside of Portland, Oregon. Scenic vistas feature cliffs, spires and ridges and peaks of the Cascade Mountain Range.
We left early in the morning from downtown Portland to drive about 45 minutes east on State Route 14 to the Columbia River Gorge — one of the most stunning landscapes in the country. The Columbia River carved this terrain of cliffs, forest and waterfalls as it cut through the Cascade Mountains.
It stretches for about 80 miles along the Oregon-Washington border. The views of the river canyons and towering forested cliffs are breathtaking and provide several scenic stops along the way.
Columbia River Gorge from Vista House, Crown Point, near Corbett, Oregon. (Jay Beiler/Dreamstime/TNS)
The historic Vista House atop of Crown Point is a must-stop overlook for panoramic views of the Columbia River. In mid-April, the gusting wind felt bone-chilling, and we were glad to have our jackets. We stopped to take photos in fields of wildflowers along the way.
Multnomah Falls is Oregon’s famous waterfall and most visited natural site, while a short mile away is the more delicate Fairy Falls. Lush rainforest drape the gorge.
We made a point to visit Hood River, the windsurfing capital of the world, during our 35-mile scenic drive of the “Fruit Loop” through orchards, vineyards and farmlands. Mount Hood dominates the background landscape while the river gorge features dramatic canyons. This scenery often feels magical and ethereal, especially earlier in the season when fewer tourists are around.
We drove back to Portland to have dinner in one of its renowned eclectic eateries, Gado Gado, an Indonesian and Malaysian-centered restaurant featuring Southeast Asian fusion cuisine in the Hollywood district. We were not disappointed by the spicy beef rendang and zucchini and corn fritters.
The next morning we visited the Portland Japanese Garden, considered one of the most authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan. We meandered through the stunning, strolling pond garden, visited a traditional tea house and admired the traditional Japanese landscape. Having visited gardens in multiple states, this is one of the most unique immersions in nature and culture.
Chinatown in Seattle
The Chinatown-International District in Seattle has a rich history dating back to the late 1800s and is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city.
From there, we took off for our two-day excursion into Washington, during which we planned to eat as much as possible in Seattle and take a train to Mount Vernon to frolic through the fields of blooming tulips.
Our first stop was Pike Place Market, where I’m almost embarrassed to reveal everything I consumed. I started with a drink from Tiny’s Apple Cider stand and a red bean sesame ball from Mee Sum Pastry. I sampled both sweet and savory crumpets from The Crumpet Shop — salmon for the savory and a honey, walnut, ricotta for dessert. We tried the flaky croissant from Le Panier and an Aditi Chai and mango from a fruit stand. These were just the snacks.
In Chinatown, we had to dine in Bruce Lee’s favorite restaurant, Tai Tung, where we sat at his table and ordered his favorite dish — beef with oyster sauce. We also tried the sweet walnut shrimp and almond chicken. We took pictures in the Bruce Lee room with life-size cardboard cutouts of the martial arts movie star.
We couldn’t leave Seattle without having seafood. The next morning we enjoyed Lowell’s Restaurant Dungeness crab omelette in Pike’s Market. We waited outside before it opened to avoid the line. And for dinner we dined at Elliot’s Oyster House, a classic waterfront restaurant, and feasted on oysters, chowder and scallops. Of course, we drank coffee and ate Top Pot Doughnuts before heading to Mount Vernon, which takes about an hour by car and two hours by train.
There are five different farms offering tours and visits during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. We bought a self-guided tour at RoozenGaarde, which cost $16 for weekdays and $20 for weekends when purchased online during the festival. The 50-acre tulip fields created spectacular blocks of color. There were so many photo opportunities among the rows of vibrant flowers and from elevated points for a different artistic angle.
Vancouver
We left our rental car behind in the States and took the scenic Cascade route on Amtrak, which connects Seattle and Vancouver. It takes about three and a half hours, but the time flies by when looking out the large windows at views of clear lakes, snow-capped mountains and dense forest. It’s worth springing for the business class seats for the extra room and larger, reclining seats.
Since we only had two days to see as much of Vancouver as possible, we decided to purchase a guided bus tour that included top attractions — Stanley Park, Capilano Suspension Bridge, Granville Island, and downtown highlights like Gastown and Chinatown. Proving that some stereotypes are rooted in truth, a Canadian woman in the back of our bus apologized to the tour operator for having to take a call during her introduction. We found the Canadians to be exceptionally nice, polite and always happy to talk about hockey.
Our finest dining experience of this trip was at the downtown, award-winning restaurant, Five Sales, where we ate scallops while gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the breathtaking view of the harbor and Lion’s Gate bridge.
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