Old Town , the area around and just south of the Burnside Bridge, is where Portland was founded in 1843. The area tended to flood, however, and when the railroad came in 1883 the town center soon shifted away; its big, ornate buildings became warehouses and it plummeted down the social scale. These days, missions for the homeless coexist with galleries, brewpubs and boutiques. The Saturday Market (March-Dec Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-4.30pm; ) packs the area south of, and under, the Burnside Bridge with arts and crafts stalls, eclectic street musicians, spicy foods and lively crowds, all crammed cheek-to-jowl by the MAX tracks. At First and Ankeny stands the Skidmore Fountain , a bronze basin raised by caryatids above a granite pool, designed to provide European elegance for the citizens and water for hard-working nineteenth-century horses. Across the fountain's angular plaza, an ornamental colonnade stretches from the side of the New Market Theater , a restored theater-cum-vegetable market that is now full of cafés. A few blocks west, the 24-Hour Church of Elvis , 720 SW Ankeny St ("most hours"; tel 503/226-3671, ; donation), is an only-in-Portland attraction: a storefront, walk-through maze of Styrofoam and plastic monstrosities, many dedicated to Mr Presley. Church of Elvis marriage certificates - and other Presley paraphernalia - are usually available from the coin-operated display in the window, and marriages can be arranged, complete with a serenade from Portland's premier Elvis impersonator.

Nearby along west Burnside, the ornamental gate at Fourth Avenue marks Chinatown , once the second-largest Chinese community in the US until white unemployment in the 1880s led, as elsewhere, to racist attacks and forced most Chinese workers to leave. There's still enough of a community here to support a range of cheap ethnic restaurants and bars, along with numerous rock and dance clubs - this stretch is the city's nexus for nightlife. Other notable sights include the American Advertising Museum , 211 NW Fifth Ave (Wed-Sun noon-5pm; $3), giving a fascinating account of the rise of advertising, from posters to tapes of old radio and TV ads, and the Classical Chinese Garden , NW Third Ave at Everett (daily Apr-Oct: 9am-6pm; Nov-Mar 10am-5pm; $6), a Suzhou-styled garden with traditional vegetation, ponds and walkways.

North of Burnside lies the chic Pearl District , an old industrial zone now gentrified with upscale lofts, galleries, restaurants and boutiques. The biggest recent redevelopment is the so-called Brewery Blocks , NW 11th Avenue between Burnside and Davis streets, a monumental renovation of the former Blitz-Weinhard brewery into high-end restaurants, retail shops and condos. Nearby is the famous Powell's City of Books , 1005 W Burnside St (daily 9am-11pm; ). With over a million new, used and rare books, Powell's occupies an entire block, as well as separate annexes around town, and provides free maps so customers can find their way around. At the store's Anne Hughes Coffee Room (tel 503/228-4651), you can pore over a book or magazine before you buy.

Further west, the Nob Hill district is better known to locals as Northwest Portland , stretching from W Burnside Street along a dozen blocks of NW 23rd and NW 21st avenue, choked with fine restaurants and boutiques, where the population density is the state's highest and the street parking is notoriously bad on weekends. The assortment of multicolored Victorian piles adds a San Franciscan tinge - and the food is as good as it gets north of California.

Old Town, Chinatown, Pearl District and Northwest Portland

• Old Town, Chinatown, Pearl District and Northwest Portland

Oregon cities


All U.S. city guides