This year the Portland Marathon falls on Sunday, October 4, 2009. The host hotel for lodging, registration and the two-day pre-race Expo will continue to be the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower. This is a fine hotel (ranked #55 out of 133 Portland hotels by Trip Advisor) but there are some other interesting choices downtown.
One of my favorites is the Portland Marriott City Center - ranked #23 by Trip Advisor - located at 520 Southwest (SW) Broadway. Officially, this is a four star, 20-story highrise, but with just 249 rooms it provides the feel of a relatively cozy, boutique-style, hotel. This feeling is enhanced when you first walk in and see that the lobby is quite small; space being at a premium in larger cities. But the good news is that the lobby is small because most of the ground floor is dedicated to a magnificent Peet's coffee shop.
This special Peet's at 508 SW Broadway has authentic mission-style chairs and couches, with enough open space to feel calm and relaxing (unlike, perhaps, a competitor's often smaller shops). In fact, it feels like you're sitting in a quiet lodge, but one with good food and extremely fresh coffee.
On weekday mornings this Peet's opens at 5:45 a.m. and closes at 7:00 p.m. It opens at 6:30 a.m. and closes earlier on weekends. The actual brewing of the bold and bolder coffees begins hours before the shop opens, so you find yourself waking up surrounded by the smell of coffee seeping through the Marriott's walls and floors. It doesn't get much better than this.
Oh, I could discuss the great spa in the hotel or the world class chocolatier across the street, or how close this hotel is to Nordstrom... But all that really matters is how very close you are to Peet's when you wake up. Throw something on and it's a short elevator ride down to a coffee-laden paradise!
Old Major Dickason, here I come.
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