Bridge town

The day started with light rain and a trip to the Portland Saturday Market. Fortunately (given the weather if not for aesthetics) it is mainly situated under a road bridge/ramp so I could browse most of the stalls (mainly craft stalls) without getting too wet. From there I headed to the Oregon Historical Society - the local history museum. Here as well as displays on the development of the local area there was a very interesting exhibition on the work of Raymond Loewy who has influenced the design of hundreds of consumer items over the years from refrigerators to cars to Concorde.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk alongside the Willamette river which flows through Portland. To do this I walked over the steel bridge which was fairly fascinating in itself - it has two desks, each of which can be raised independently to let ships through. The bottom deck is mainly rail plus a footpath. On the top desk there is room for cards as well as two lines of the local light transit and a footpath - of course I had to cross both to see what it was like! Some of the best views of Portland can be seen from that top deck. Form there I walked along the side of the river, partially on a set of floating platforms, until it started to rain so I crossed over another bridge to head back to my hotel.