HELP! I’VE FALLEN IN (love with) TUSCANY AND I CAN’T GET UP

Visit to Port Orford, Oregon

     Our friends from down the street, Peter and Lana, bought a house in the nearly remote sea-side community of Port Orford, Oregon.  Both of them are retired now and have spent a great deal of their free time somewhere on the coast dreaming of the day they might have a cottage at the ocean.  They found a terrific house, very sound and weather-tight.  It isn’t on the beach, but in Port Orford you don’t really want to live at the beach.  It is a bit severe—climate-wise.  Between Christmas and New Years we visited then in their home on the southern Oregon coast. 

     Marianne and I, just as everybody in western part of the state, love the Oregon coast no matter what part of it we are on.  When I was growing up in Idaho, my dad took the family on a Oregon vacation.  I remember vividly visiting the Oregon coast, especially Sunset Bay, near Charleston and Coos Bay.  If you don’t know about the tide pools at Sunset Bay, which every school aged kid on the western side of the Oregon Coastal Range knows about, and then you don’t know the Oregon coast.  It is absolutely one of the best places in the world to witness the beauty of creation.  Shore Acres, just a few miles south, is one of the finest botanical gardens you’ll find, and the crashing surf is breathtaking.  Situated on the grounds of former timber baron, J. P. Simpson, the multi-acre park, secluded in coastal pines, over looks the dramatic Pacific coast.  Marianne and I went there on our honeymoon.  Although the Oregon coast has gotten terribly over-run with development and tourists, most of the beauty remains. 

      Bandon is the favorite get away spot for many ‘Roseburg-ers’.  Bandon-by-the-Sea was a quiet fishing town, once ravaged by wild fires; it was the perfect place to get to the water, either in a cheap motel or camping at Bullard’s State Park.  In the last ten a years the poor sleepy community has been battered into “Californication” by the addition of a world class destination golf course, Bandon Dunes, which is said may be on a par with St. Andrew’s in Scotland, but it sure sucked the ‘ow-key’ cheapness out of Bandon. 

     For over about eight years, we have been going to Yachats, south of Newport (now shamefully and grossly commercialized and over-built).  Yachats (Yah-hahts) was the perfect tiny town on the Oregon coast.  We would always go over after Christmas and stay until New Years.  Summer was also a great time to find a week to hang out in the sleepy wind swept community.  We have even contemplated finding a house that we could buy stay, rent, and retire to when I was through teaching. 

     Our favorite place to stay was the Shamrock Lodgetts—cabins that had a pristine unspoiled vista of the whole Pacific right outside the front porch.  It was what the Oregon coast use to be.  The shops and restaurants were fun and funky to explore and it was quiet, except for the Landmark on the weekend.  We stopped going after the strip malls started to dot the highway and some senseless greedy-types bull-dozed the Lodgetts and turned the property into multiple family dwellings—cheap looking boxes going for $800, 000 to a million. 

   Fed up with the greed and the corruption of the Oregon coast, many of us Oregonians keep searching for a place that offers a small town life, uninfluenced by the outside world.  Our friends, Lana and Peter, also theatre/music friends, both recently retired, were longing for a pristine patch of coastal space.  They found it in Port Orford.  Located on Highway 101 26 or so miles south of Bandon, this very unassuming and economically depressed area has a lot going for it.  The town is situated around the headlands, on which the old coast guard center was located.  The old buildings are now a museum.  The clean and organized trails around the headlands are perfect for walking, in almost any weather. 

     We drove there in about two and a half hours.  Miraculously the rain stopped when we got into town.  However, the first night it rained hard—driven sideways by the high wind.  We had our appetites set on the best fish and chips on the southern coast, according to Sunset Magazine, at ‘The Crazy Norwegian’s’.  However, after two bottles of wine and appetizers at our host’s new home, we arrived at an over-packed hole-in-the wall restaurant at 7:30 PM to find that it had a wait-list—and hour.  Peter was shocked.  He couldn’t believe that the place could ever be that full.  The restaurant across the street was closed so we headed back up 101, near their home, and had pizza at ‘Hard Rain’.  They have never had a bad meal there.  The food was great and the young waiter kept us in stitches.  Pizza and salad was a complete meal.

     The next day the sun broke through and the coast revealed itself in glorious splendor.  Marianne was in a reading mood, but I needed some outdoor time.  Peter and Lana walk daily and have a favorite trail--the headlands.  We happened to choose to walk on the most perfect day possible.  Leaving Marianne to fend for her self (the town boasts an excellent Quilt Shop) the three of us took the scenic route, taking in a small lake right on the shore, the beach, the dry dock, and the headlands walk.  Talk about the coast at its raw best.  The surf was incredible.  The cliffs and bluffs are high in this part of the coast and the ocean is deep.  The combination creates thundering waves that crash on shore in an awesome crescendo.  This is not the gentle rolling surf of Seaside; it is unadulterated mother earth at her powerful best.

    The sunny day, extremely rare, afforded us the opportunity to walk the beach and comb for agates.  Coming into the park, we were met by a young porcupine, which was agreeable to picture taking, provided we were respectful.  The water was just a little too cold to walk in, and because the surf here pounds the shore with unbridled fury, it was best to keep on the dark, aggregate-like sand. 

    Next, my hosts showed me the highlights of Port Orford.  It was a typical rural town on the Oregon coast, except the houses around the lake, and the big ones on the way up to the headlands were impressive.  The whole park area at the former Coast Guard Station has been developed and maintained.  It was a great place to walk, with huge, majestic trees and absolutely stunning views of the steep shoreline below.  As you walk around the headlands, you can see the old rescue station where the coast guard would run down the hill, and slide the huge boats into the protected surf.  The light house is gone now, but the vista from the concert pad that remains was breathtaking.  We happened to run into a mutual friend, Diane, a former ‘Mousketeer’ (honesty) and dancer who was one of the first brave souls to move to Port Orford from Roseburg.  She and her husband Rick have a great piece of property up above the highway.  Marianne and I have done incredible theatre with both Diane and Rick—hugely talented, giant hearted.

     Being a former dancer, Diane has to walk, and walk briskly, ever day.  That’s how we meet on the trail; she was completing her third lap of the two-mile trail.  After a comical reunion, with howls of laughter, we decided to make plans for breakfast the next day at a local café.  Then, off she went power walking into the forest.  That night we ate in: delicious fresh-made ravioli from ‘Hard Rain’.  Along with a salad, left over pizza and wine; it was a feast. 

     Breakfast at a local café brought rain, but the food was great and the company ‘molto’ fun.  Rick and Diane were ecstatic about our plans to visit Italy.  The outgoing couple has been helping with a fledgling theater in Port Orford, Theatre 101, which our mutual friend, Perry, has created.  They have already done a dozen shows in the three to four year history of the theater.  Rick and Diane took us on a tour of the space and we were pleasantly surprised by the place.  By the end of the tour, the rain was sideways again and rivers were coursing through the parking lot.  We said our goodbyes to all and headed back out on the road for home.  We are hoping to get back to Port Orford soon.  It was definitely worth a second look.

     When we got home I emailed Fiona Lapham:

We are hoping you will be working and cooking so we can dine there (if we can afford it).
We will be staying in an apartment on Piazza Cimatori (via de'Cerchi and via Dante Alighieri  --about four blocks (?) south of the Duomo).  We are getting 'dropped off' by the tour/B&B people from Magione, where we'll be the week before.  What's the best place to get a taxi or ride the ellettrico bus A if he drops us off farther out of the city?
I started reading the travel books and found that the Thursday we are there (giugno 24) is Festival of St. John of Florence and Calcio Fiorentino.  The books warn about avoiding this day.  Is it really that bad--that pazzo!?  I would love to see the soccer game, but can we get anywhere?  will we be able to get into a restaurant?  If I do in fact have a job you of course will be more than welcome to dine there. 

She responded:

The best way to get a taxi is to call the company, the number is 0554242, or, you can get dropped off at one of the taxi stands. If you tell me which direction you are coming from when you get dropped off I can recommend a stand. 

San Giovanni, or St. John's day, is really fun! The soccer game is really interesting, though very violent. The best part of the day is the fireworks at night. The city does get quite crowded around that time, but I don't think it will be too bad to get into a restaurant. The only difficult part is getting out of the city afterwards, but if you're staying in the city than it shouldn't be a problem. I usually go down to the city on that day since it is so fun. 

Let me know if you have any questions, Fiona