Sights—The Washington Park International Rose Garden; the Classical Chinese Garden; Multnomah Falls, Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge.

Museums—World Forestry Center Discovery Museum; Portland Art Museum; Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Memorable Meals—Wildwood for regional specialties cooked in a wood-burning oven; Paley's Place for excellent French dishes with some Pacific Northwestern twists; crab cakes with a view at Salty's on the Columbia River; dessert at Papa Haydn.

Late Night—Microbrews, basketball and a cheap movie at The Kennedy School; city views from Mount Tabor Park; quirky sweets at Voodoo Doughnut.

Walks—Hiking and exploring expansive Forest Park; walking along the Willamette River Esplanade; strolling through Hoyt Arboretum; taking in the view of the Cascade Mountains from the serene Japanese Garden in Washington Park.

Especially for Kids—Hands-on exhibits at the Portland Children's Museum; exotic wildlife at the Oregon Zoo; rides at Oaks Amusement Park; Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; the World Forestry Center Discovery Museum.

Though often considered a West Coast city, Portland is not on the Pacific coast—it is about 70 mi/110 km east of the ocean, on the eastern side of the Coast Range mountains. The Columbia and Willamette (pronounced wil-LAM-et) rivers define the town. The Willamette is crossed by 11 bridges within the city limits, giving rise to one of Portland's nicknames—Bridgetown. The Columbia forms the city's northern limit.

Though it's composed of many neighborhoods, Portland uses a quadrant system. An address alone is usually enough to give you a good idea where a site is located. The east-west divider is the Willamette River; the north-south boundary is Burnside Avenue. Therefore, an address such as 1300 N.E. Halsey would lie in the Northeast quadrant—north of Burnside and east of the river. The numbered avenues also point you in the right direction: They run north-south and lie on both sides of the Willamette, increasing in number as you move away from the river.

Downtown proper is technically in the Southwest quadrant but is very close to the center of the four sections and is often referred to as a district unto itself. It's nestled between Burnside Avenue, the Willamette and Interstate 405. Downtown and less-central parts of the Southwest quadrant boast the greatest range of sightseeing, shopping and entertainment venues.

Mount Hood, visible from many parts of Portland, is the highest peak in Oregon at 11,295 ft/3,501 m. It's part of the Cascade Range, which is about 60 mi/95 km east of the city. The Columbia flows through these mountains in the Columbia River Gorge, a scenic and recreational wonderland lined with green hills and equally green volcanic plugs as high as 4,000 ft/1,240 m.

Portland's setting on the Columbia River has always been the key to its appeal. The region's natural abundance allowed the Native Americans who inhabited the area, including the Chinook, Clatsop and others, to develop a rich culture. And it was the Columbia that first drew European explorers to the area, as well. The Lewis and Clark expedition floated down the river in the fall of 1805, and the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Vancouver just across the Columbia from present-day Portland in the 1820s. Beginning in the 1840s, tens of thousands of settlers from the eastern U.S. poured over the Oregon Trail. They soon recognized that the point where the Willamette River met the Columbia had good potential as a port city. It got its name when two East Coast founders—one from Boston and the other from Portland, Maine—flipped a coin to determine which hometown would be honored.

Growth in the early years was spectacular, and Portland was rivaled in the west only by post-gold-rush San Francisco. But by the turn of the 20th century, Portland was being overshadowed as a port by both San Francisco and Seattle. Fishing and timber became the city's main businesses, but their good fortunes were not to last. Fish stocks had been all but depleted by the time the last dams went up on the Columbia in the 1950s. In the 1970s, the timber industry crashed, and Portland became a rather sleepy river town.

Since the 1980s, the city has seen remarkable growth. Low housing prices and favorable business conditions drew people and industry from California and the East Coast, including many computer-related companies. Yet the growth wasn't willy-nilly as it was in some Internet boomtowns. Progressive initiatives kept a handle on growth and insisted upon livability for the city's residents. But the dot-com crash hit Portland hard, and the city struggled with high unemployment and departing corporations as it attempted to reinvent itself. Economic conditions are now looking up for Portlanders. The city is increasingly popular and polished, evidenced by the rush of upscale residential construction projects dotting the urban landscape.

More people bicycle to work in Portland than any other city in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Portland is considered the beer capital of the world, with 32 breweries in the city limits, more than any other U.S. city. And the annual Oregon Brewers Festival is the largest gathering of independent brewers in North America.

Portland is home to the smallest park in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Mill Ends Park is just 2 ft/1 m across and was created in 1945 out of a utility-pole hole that was never filled. Over the years, landscaping and miniature additions made it a quirky city darling.

There are 71,165 personalized bricks in Pioneer Courthouse Square (try to find the one bought in honor of Elvis Presley).

Portland gets about 36 in/91 cm of rainfall a year, which is less than Seattle, Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston or Indianapolis, but it is still one of the rainiest cities in the U.S.

Forest Park now has more than 5,000 acres/2,023 hectares of forest, making it the largest forest inside a city limits in the U.S.