Sprinkles and Fruit Loops top Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland.

There is a painted mural on 3rd Avenue that sums it up neatly: “Keep Portland Weird.”

Oregon’s biggest city is kind of weird, but in the best ways possible.

It sets trends so far ahead, they seem at first strange and out of place. But in hindsight, Portland might be seen as crazy like a fox.

Portland was among the first places to pay people for their trash: in 1971, it introduced refunds for bottles and cans. Three years later, it got greener and tore down a highway, replacing it with a park.

Both actions seemed a bit nutty at the time.

Thankfully, Portland is keeping it real, keeping it weird – and that’s what makes the city such a great travel destination. Portland keeps surprising you at every turn.

Something as simple as doughnuts gets twisted here. The indie Voodoo Doughnut shop (logo: “The Magic is in the Hole!!!”) is crowded in the morning with multi-pierced, dreadlocked bike couriers as well as corporate types in suits.

They’re all there for the same things: doughnuts topped with Tang orange crystals, Fruit Loops or crushed Tums or glazed with NyQuil. (The latter two creations were discontinued after city health officials got wind of them.)

The doughnut shop’s macabre edible voodoo doll is shaped like a gingerbread man and has a pretzel stuck into its abdomen, complete with faux blood (red jelly).

In truth, Portland really likes to play with its food.

Alma Chocolate has a Virgin Mary and a figurine of Ganesha, the Hindu deity, made of chocolate. A gourmet shop called the Meadow stocks 35 kinds of salt. Bartini serves up 85 variations of martinis.

One of the most popular food stalls at Portland’s farmers’ market is Pine State Biscuits, which sells North-Carolina-style buttermilk biscuits and gravy. A favourite is the heart-stopping Reggie Deluxe, a biscuit sandwich with fried chicken, bacon, cheese and egg, smothered in mushroom or sausage gravy.

Restaurants follow suit. Beaker and Flask (housed in a former gas station) opened in June 2009 and within four months was named best restaurant (not best new restaurant; best restaurant, period). It takes classic dishes and gives them a twist. Its roast chicken, for example, is a beauty, paired with lentil salad and escargot.

And for those people who say, “I don’t like sweetbreads,” an appetizer of pan-seared smoked sweetbreads will make them a believer.

At Meriwether, the “beets-yuck!” crowd falls hard for a salad in which beets are paired with feta, coconut and almonds in a pomegranate dressing.

There’s a spirited side to Portland too. Tucked away on its back streets is Integrity Spirits, a craft distillery that makes small batches of vodka flavoured with roasted Oregon hazelnuts and absinthe made with green anise, wormwood and hyssop.

In nearby Forest Grove, SakeOne is the only American-owned sake distillery.

A passion for food is as strong in Oregon as a love of beer and bicycles. When you meet a local, before they ask where you’re from, they want to know where you’ve eaten. In a town that boasts the best food carts in North America (and even a book about them called Cartopia) and a firm farmto-fork philosophy, this might not be surprising.

This city adores their food. Time magazine has called Portland “America’s new food Eden.”

The way regular folks gossip about celebrities, Portlandians whisper rumours about chefs and restaurant openings and closings. They’re a bit weird that way.

Portland’s cultural scene is unusual, too. Name another city where you can find a museum devoted to black velvet paintings. Velveteria, sadly now closed, featured more than 2,000 pieces of furry art, featuring everything from Elvis to scary clowns.

Remember Ramona the Pest, a book you may have read in grade school? Its author Beverly Cleary has her own sculpture garden in Grant Park. Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins live on as life-size statues.

The 3-D Center of Art and Photography features a collection of View Masters and its discs. (If you’re under 40, this won’t make any sense to you, but your Mom and Dad probably owned one of these and thought it was a cool to see three-dimensional images back in the day, way before iPods.)

Vegans in this freewheeling city even have their own mini mall with veganonly businesses: the Sweet pea Bakery, Herbivore Clothing Company, Food Fight Grocery and Scapegoat, a tattoo parlour that uses vegan ink for its creations.

Portland attracts liberal thinkers who just want a great place to live and do their thing. Which is why Portland has attractions such as the Vacuum Cleaner Museum (hosting 300 types).

There’s public art everywhere and residents have named much of it in their own ironic way. “Pull My Finger” (actually named Portlandia) is a female Neptune-like figure with her index finger extended.

“Three Groins in a Fountain” (actually titled The Quest) is a fountain with three oddly intertwined nude bodies.

For kicks, Portland residents may end up at an adult spelling bee at the Mississippi Pizza Pub on a Monday night. Or they might go to Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade to play vintage games such as PacMan, Galaga, Donkey Kong or Frogger.

Or they might stroll through the Portland Japanese Garden. It’s spread over 2 1 hectares and has been ?4 named the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan. Its site was once a parking lot.

Then there are the festivals. Show up for the Faux Film Festival in early April, around April Fool’s Day, for a celebration of films that never were. To be more precise, it features submissions of mockumentaries, fake movie trailers, spoofs of blockbusters and counterfeit commercials. Hilarious stuff.

Also check out the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

Goth meets horror. Expect plenty of moviegoers of both sexes wearing heavy eyeliner.

Portland seems to love all things retro. That comes across even in its buildings. The Ace Hotel did some savvy antiquing to furnish its rooms and lobby area with vintage stuff. It even salvaged surplus rain cloaks from the German Army to upholster its couches.

The new and gorgeous the Nines salvaged an entire historic building – a department store where Clark Garble once sold ties – and turned it into a glitzy, boutique hotel.

The kicker is that Portland offers free public transportation to get to many of these places, courtesy of its MAX (Metropolitan Area Express) light-rail system (powered by biodiesel, to boot). Within its downtown core, you can hop on and hop off as you please. No ticket needed.

Nothing. Nada. It’s a crazy idea that perhaps more cities should adopt if they really want to cut down on traffic and carbon dioxide levels. No wonder it’s the fourth busiest light-rail system in the United States, with 2.9 million trips taken each month.

But despite the city’s primo public transportation, Portland’s residents are very bike-centric too. Portland has more than 430 kilometres of on-street bike lanes and paved trails in the downtown core. Visitors can rent a bike, helmet, lock and bike bag from Waterfront Bicycle Rentals. It’s a great way to work off the calories you consume at all those fantastic food carts, which feature everything from Polish to Hawaiian cuisine.

There is even a cart devoted to tater tots, kicked up to gourmet levels with toppings such as pineapple, jalapeno peppers, black beans or chipotle sour cream.

When Portlandians aren’t home in their magnificent, quirky city, they are out in the countryside, doing outdoorsy stuff such as weighing in about who’s making the best Pinot Noir in Oregon, or connecting with the earth by going chanterelle hunting. (Don’t even ask one of these hunters where they go to get these or any other kind of mushrooms.

These secrets are guarded as closely as debit-card PIN numbers.)

Within an hour of Portland, the Willamette Valley is home to more than 200 wineries. You can do an incredible amount of sipping in one day, but don’t even try. Bed down for a few nights at a fantastic resort such as the Allison Resort and Spa, a luxurious spot that’s ideally situated for exploring this popular wine region.

Opened in 2009, the Allison is a relative newcomer to the scene, but is wowing guests with a combination of great food, spa services and comfy rooms that are difficult to leave, even for wine-tasting excursions. It has its own hazelnut orchard and vegetable garden.

Its signature restaurant, Jory, dishes up delectable fare such as Yukon goldpotato gnocchi with lamband-beef ragout and a killer crisp-potato-crusted halibut over roasted wild mushrooms and melted leeks.

Finish with vanilla bean creme brulee, served with orange-cardamom doughnuts. (This is a doughnut loving state, after all.)

But you won’t want to spend too much time away from Portland, which is often described as a big city with a small-town feel.

It’s unusual indeed, but weird makes Portland a pretty wonderful place to visit.

IF YOU GO

How to get there: Air Canada has direct flights to Portland from Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary.

WHERE TO EAT:

Voodoo Doughnuts: voodoodoughnut.com, 1-503-241-4704

Alma Chocolate: almachocolate.com, 1-503-517-0262

Portland Farmers Market: portlandfarmersmarket.org

Pine State Biscuits: pinestatebiscuits.com, 1-503-236-3346

Beaker & Flask: beakerandflask.com, 1-503-235-8180

Meriwether: meriwethersnw.com, 1-503-228-250

Mississippi Pizza Pub (home of the adult spelling bee): mississippipizza.com, 1-503-235-8180

WHERE TO SIP:

Integrity Spirits: integrityspirits.com

SakeOne: sakeone.com, 1-503-357-7056

WHAT TO DO:

3D Center of Art and Photography: 3dcenter.us, 1-503-227-6667

Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade: groundkontrol.com, 1-503-796-9364

Portland Japanese Garden: japanesegarden.com, 1-503-223-1321

Faux Film Festival: fauxfilm.com

Vacuum Cleaner Museum: starks.com/about-us/vacuum, 1-503-232-4101

Waterfront Bicycle Rentals: waterfrontbikes.com, 1-503-227-1719

WHERE TO STAY:

The Ace Hotel: Rooms $95 US and up. See acehotel.com/Portland or call 1-503-228-2277

The Nines: Room start at $210 US for a double. See thenines.com or call 1-800-325-3589

The Allison Resort & Spa: Doubles start at $305 US. See theallison.com or call 1-503-554-2525

More: travelportland.com or 1-877-678-5263

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