Washington Park at Portland
Rating: 10/ 10
Cost: Park entrance is Free; individual sites have fees
Location: 3 miles from downtown Portland or Beaverton
Parking: Paid parking available but very limited (read below), shuttle to go between spots
Features: Oregon Zoo, Vietnam War Memorial, Hoyt Arboretum, World Forestry Center, Holocaust Memorial, Japanese Garden, International Rose Test Garden, Portland Children’s Museum
Washington Park is not a well-known attraction although some of it’s features individually like Zoo and Japanese Garden are well-known. However when taken together for all it’s features, the Park is an excellent attraction Portland has which can easily take one whole day in itself (even excluding Zoo which in itself can take 4–5 hours to appreciate).
Parking/ Transit
I’ll talk of the day and address some of the issues like parking. We drove to Oregon Zoo directly but realized all the parking lots (which are paid to begin with) were filled. The signs told us to go to Sunset Transit Center- 15 minute drive away and take a train from there. Transit system in Portland is very efficient, and the day pass is $5 each person. There is also a discount of $1.50 per ticket for zoo. The zoo is the only gateway to the park via train. Bus 63 also runs from Pearl District to Japanese Garden. It is bit of a hassle, so my suggestion would be just take an Uber into the venue- that’s the easiest solution. Once you’re inside the park, there is a reliable shuttle every 15-minute to go between the spots and all the major spots are accessible.
The Rose Garden, Holocaust Memorial are free while Japanese Garden has an entrance fee of $16.95 and Oregon Zoo has an entrance fee of $18.50.
Rose Garden
First time when I went in September few years back, the Garden was in full-bloom and there were roses everywhere of a wide-ranging variety. When you walk through it you keep going through beds of roses (literally), some smaller gardens and even smaller trails. This time though a lot of the roses were dead. There is a very nice amphitheater made out of grass. There were roses here and there, but a lot of nothing. However walking through the gardens we heard some music being played and headed to hear some chamber music being played by a group of young folks. It was very soothing, I rested and it went excellently against the background. The Garden is located opposite to the Japanese Garden, so it’s worth doing both together.
Holocaust Memorial
It’s not a Museum, but a very small stone wall with inscriptions so keep your expectations low. It narrates the history of Nazis, their antisemitism finally leading to Final Solution. Adjacent to it is a memorial wall with one-line quotes from children, and as you move left to right it gets ghastlier. At the end there is a small shrine with rocks from all the major 6 concentration camps. It swirls around to commemorate the Jews who died and had families in Washington/ Oregon. It’s definitely a powerful experience for the first time.
Japanese Garden
Visiting a Japanese Garden often takes some understanding or context about elements of Japanese culture, their obsession with order, understanding of zen Buddhishm and also various symbols associated with Shintoism. You can appreciate it as it still is very aesthetically speaking, looks like a vast natural garden, has a lot of greenery, shrines. However it’s best when you know the symbolism of cranes, koi fish, it’s evolution to dragon, rock gardens in Japan.
At the Garden itself, once you buy the ticket there are shuttles to get you to the top which are otherwise a long flight of stairs. They hand a guide with the ticket which explains some of the symbolism and a guide on where to go next. There is a tea-house, two rock gardens, moss gardens, koi ponds, waterfalls and more inside. It’s much larger than it’s Seattle counterpart, and little larger than SF one. If the zen Buddhism of Kyoto which was Steve Job’s favorite retreat fascinates you, this is definitely worth a visit.
Oregon Zoo
I’ve gone to many Zoos in US including twice to Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle), Cougar Mountain Zoo (Issaquah), Henry Villas Zoo (Madison), Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago) so I wasn’t sure if Portland one would bring anything I hadn’t experienced but decided to go anyways because it was something I hadn’t done in so many visits. I’d say I came out very delighted from my experience and would highly recommend it to others (although not first-time travelers on a time-budget). Going through the zoo takes 3–4 hours easily. The zoo also happens to the oldest zoo in the West US (1888).
Our first sight was a mountain-goat, an animal which has consistently evaded it’s presence mysteriously missing from it’s hideout. Further the zoo has many sections: The Great Northwest, African Rainforest, Savannah Predators, Elephant Lands, Primates, Arctic. Here is a complete list of what you can see and here is a more concise view. Some of the other animals which left an impression- Bald Eagle exhibit was very nice. The symbol of America, you can see two of them perching with heads high. Seeing a Condor was impressive, especially given they were brought back from extinction in the wild. My favorite were the Beavers in Northwest section. They were initially sleeping but then came out of their exhibit to swim. They’re exceptionally adorable.
For the penguins exhibit, Seattle zoo does a much better job as you can see them from much closer but they had seals, river otters in the same section. You can watch seals swimming deep in the water, and performing tricks. River otter was the highlight though. Again a near-extinct species, the river otter just rested in the sun with backstroke swim. And finally the Elephant lands was pretty impressive as it had a mother-child combo and the baby elephant took a dip in the water, ate an apple from there and sprayed water in the exhibit on her mom. I’d strongly suggest to bring extra water bottles and food to the zoo, as water is overpriced ($3.50) and food is pathetic.
Summary
As I said at the beginning, the Park itself is an exceptional complex of many attractions in such a small space and it’s definitely worth visiting. Individual attractions can be decided based on time you have and amount of money you’re willing to shell but most of them are very good experiences.
