Portland Walks – Via Delizia

Last year my wife purchased a book for us titled: Portland City Walks.  We decided that after almost 30 years of living in the suburbs outside of Portland, that we would get out and really explore the city.  The book contains twenty walks that are in Portland or the surrounding communities.  There is a wide variety in the length of the walks from 2.5 to 6.6 miles.

A little while back, we took our first walk (number 17) in the small college town of Forest Grove.  It was a nice sunny day and we spent 2 1 /2 hours walking the 4.1-mile loop around the town.  The book in informative as it gives specific directions for the walk and then at points along the walk, there is historical information to read about the houses, buildings or area.

We decided to take our second walk (number 14) in downtown Portland through the Pearl District to Slabtown.  Even though it is now the month of May and we have had some great weather this month, that day had scattered showers and we even heard some thunder, which is very unusual for Portland.  Even with the rain, we had a great walk.  We really enjoyed reading information in the book about the how the area of the city had changed over the years from individual housing to industrial buildings with railroads, and now back to condominium housing.

We don’t get into the city of Portland very often – in fact I think that I have spent more time walking the streets of Paris than I have those of Portland.  Along the way, we saw there was a small café with a display case full of gelato.  As this trip was like walking through a European city, we decided to stop for a few minutes and enjoy a small dish of gelato.

This café, the Via Delizia is on the corner of NW 11th and Marshall of Portland.  We went in, I ordered a single scoop of mint chocolate, and my wife had a scoop of coconut.  The dishes of gelato even came with little gelato shovels, just like they do in Italy.  It was nice to sit down for a bit and enjoy the refreshing coolness of the gelato.  We were able to visualize that we were in Rome sitting in a little gelato shop while taking a rest from sight seeing.

We decided that on each subsequent walk, we would seek out a new dining or food experience.  Now we just need to speed up our pace as this 3.3-mile walk took us almost four hours to complete (that includes going inside stores along the way and exploring).  If we take that long on some of the longer walks, they will take us all day!

I can’t wait to see what treats we will find on our next walk.

Get the book here: Portland City Walks

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell