Portland is a Party!

Jill's Journal: Portland just feels like a fun town. This morning, we were out the door bright and early to experience the Portland Saturday Market. What a ball! (Also, I quite enjoyed it when Rob got the distinct joy of driving in downtown Portland for the first time; he quickly learned my complaints earlier in the week were not baseless! He very possibly dislikes it even more than I do.)

The Portland Saturday Market is essentially an outdoor handcrafted goods market. The majority of the 400+ vendors and artists are local. If you can imagine it, it’s probably here. But this isn’t anything like a flea market: all items sold are required to be handmade by the person selling them and their products are “vetted” by a membership committee for quality. In operation since 1974, this is the oldest continuously-operated arts and crafts market in the country. It generates over $8 million in sales annually.

We’re not gigantic shoppers, but the Portland Saturday Market is a great environment and an incredibly fun place to visit. There are all sorts of food vendors and street performers and it just feels like a party. This is the Skidmore Fountain, where the people-watching is particularly first-rate. It’s actually an 1888 landmark in Portland, modeled after Parisian fountains and intended as a spot for “horses, men, and dogs” to drink. When it was dedicated, the famous Portland beer brewer, Henry Weinhard (probably best known today for his company’s root beer and gourmet sodas), offered to pump his beer through the fountain. The city of Portland declined his kind offer.

This has to be the funnest street band ever, All the Apparatus (or ATA). We could hear them from a distance and were drawn in to the fun. This awesome Portland band, which has quite a local following, describes themselves as “avante-garde dirty gypsy klezmer jazz indie anti-folk rock.” They were just plain fun.

We all had smiles on our faces while we enjoyed them and even took home a CD. Madelyn couldn’t contain her feet and danced, danced, danced. Other people in the audience couldn’t help dancing either!

After all that fun, we simply had to go to St Honore Boulangerie for lunch. Every Portland “must-see” list I’d found mentioned this place. It’s a neighborhood French bakery and café, named for the patron saint of bakers.

From its cozy, old-world ambiance…

…to the luscious pastries and delectable smell of fresh bread emanating from the open-air kitchen…

…to the most perfect chocolate croissants outside of France, St Honore = C’est Magnifique.