Astoria OR, Less Than a Strong Finish

TRAVEL THERE:  ASTORIA OR, ENDING A GREAT VACATION ON A WEAK NOTE

Welcome to Oregon! Well, sort of. This past summer my husband and I spent twelve days traveling the state and now I’m sharing the experience with you. I’ll tell you about the attractions we visited, the meals we ate and where we stayed. Maybe you’ll decide you want to visit Oregon, too. Today we end our tour with an overnight stop in Astoria.

Good and Bad in Astoria

Astoria was a mixed bag. Their Columbia River Maritime Museum was a real hit – especially with my husband, but pretty much everything else I could have done without.  If you repeat my route, spend the night in Cannon Beach and stop by the museum on your way to Portland.

I’ll admit that the town suffered from twelve days of amazing scenery.  The foggy little metropolis just wasn’t on par with say, Crater Lake or Cape Meares.  Perhaps if I lived in Portland, I’d like to pop over to Astoria for a visit, but at the end of twelve days of amazement, Astoria was a bit of a disappointment.

Grandview Bed & Breakfast Inn

Our accommodations were fine: The Grandview Bed and Breakfast Inn.  You couldn’t bring alcohol in and the hostess greeted you with religious literature of some sort, but part of the fun of staying in B&B’s is rubbing elbows with folks you wouldn’t meet back at home.

The Inn is huge and in our room, Little Hummers, we had the view we snapped out of our window – which was nice.  Our room was spacious and we had everything we needed, but I felt there was a level of luxury missing that I expect from a B&B.  The white bed was not a heavy antique iron bed, but a cheap imitation with hollow rods.  The linens were thin and quite frankly, worn.  The other furniture was sort of mismatched, like it had been picked up at the thrift store and then painted white.  Some people would say that was shabby chic, but the effect was more shabby than chic.  Everything was meticulously clean, however.  I felt like we got our $100 worth, but just.

Clemente’s 

Since we were there on a Saturday night, we were looking for a nice restaurant for a date night.  We went to Clemente’s on a corner downtown, which was nice enough, but almost empty on the Saturday night.  The concrete floor and the sparsely placed tables rendered a coldness to the evening.  The food was good and the service better than average, but we didn’t leave dying to tell others to eat there.

Breakfast Was a Bright Spot

One bright spot was our breakfast.  What the Grandview lacked in grandness upstairs it made up for in the kitchen.  Marvelous meal and great company, served up to perfection.

Outside the day was chilly and foggy.  We started out on the driving tour I’d downloaded from some internet site, but when the fog prevented us from even seeing the top of the Astoria Column, we cut the tour short and headed to the Maritime Museum.  The museum is outstanding.  I can’t recommend it enough, but it’s the only thing we saw worth visiting.

We had lunch at the famous Wet Dog Cafe, but I’m not sure what it’s famous for.  It’s just a funky, not quite clean place with so so food.  It was time to get home.  I was more interested in seeing my own puppy than enjoying the local color.  On to Portland for one last night in Oregon.