Walk There: Colonial Heights and Ladd's Addition

Goose and I have slowly been making our way through Walk There, a great guide to walks in the Portland area, and this week, we chose an area we've visited a few times and have loved. Colonial Heights and Ladd's Addition are two SE Portland neighborhoods with a great mix of huge, gorgeous houses and cute, funky ones, and lots of trees, gardens, and cool shops.

This is a diamond-shaped rose garden surrounded by quiet residential streets. A bit hard to capture in the dimming light, but so lovely.

A few blocks past the church you see is Ladd's Circle, a wonderful rose garden with street spokes extending symmetrically from the perfect circle. We first experienced this area with our friend Sarah a couple of years back and returned this summer when Scott and Hilary visited. They have friends who are fortunate enough to live on one of the spokes, a short walk from the center.

Here's an arial picture of Ladd's Circle that I found on PSU's website. It is so striking on a larger map, where you can see that this area is completely surrounded by a grid of streets.


Right on the circle is a neat little coffee shop called Palio. We stopped for coffee, an impossibly big piece of oreo cake (one of the better cakes we've tried) and a game of Upwards.

By the time we left, it was dark, though that doesn't mean it was late! I can't wait til the days start getting longer again, but I like being out in the dark where there are lots of folks out and the lights in homes and businesses are on. So many of the houses along our route have big, uncovered front windows, so we could see people making dinner and doing other things and we could admire their holiday docorations.


A few times, we were so caught up in talking or taking in our surroundings that we forgot to pay attention to where we were going. With the wrong turns, we extended the walk significantly beyond the 2.3 miles stated in the book, but we also encountered some great things. In one neat shop that we stepped in seconds before they were going to lock the door, we found the perfect gift for a friend. And because we missed one street, we got to experience the Peoples Co-op, this awesome little natural foods store that we'd heard about numerous times by friends who used to live nearby.

What a lovely walk. I love living in a place where we have to wear hats and gloves for winter walks, but where they are still warm enough to be enjoyable! And curling up in a robe on the couch with a warm beverage afterward is that much better!