Every time I travel to Portland, Oregon I visit this beautiful place. I remember one particulat rainy day, when I had the whole place for myself, something that made me feel like I was really at piece with myself and the world.
Each garden (there are 5 of them, from the natural and almost wild to the very stylized and Zen) will offer you something very special. Take the time to sit in a bench or alcove, or stand on one of the bridges and absorb the ambience and feel your edginness or stress melt away.
Spring, summer, fall and winter will decorate this magical place with a wideranging pallette of colours, textures, sounds and aromas.
Don't hesitate to visit.
Bernd Benemann Schwabe
Mexico

We first visited The Portland Japanese Gardens in September 2004. The trees were barely changing colors and it was a warm day.

We parked in the lot at the bottom of the hill and climbed the path up, through the trees, looking back and down as we went. Unless you have an impairment, the walk up should not be too hard and it is a pleasure to stop half way up and look back through the trees.

As you walk into the Gardens, there is a strong feeling of leaving the rest of the World behind and stepping into a peaceful serene place that will stay with you for at least the rest of the day.

We moved to Portland this year and we went back to the Gardens in the fall.

The trees were colorful, it was cool and misty.

We made a point of going to each reflecting pool and just standing or sitting and letting the atmosphere just soak in. We took many photos and enjoyed meeting others who enjoyed the pleasures of trying to get a good photo of those giant Koi fish!

I strongly recommend that any visitors to Portland, to go to the Japanese Gardens. I live here now and try to go at least once a month.

The gardens are located at the top of a steep drive so we took the free bus to the entrance.

We opted for the self-guided tour as we had just missed the guided tour and didn't want to wait for the next one.

At the entrance we were given a leaflet with a suggested route round the gardens and an explanation of each area which was more than adequate and helped us find our way around very easily.

The gardens are beautiful, even more so when they are fully in bloom I would suspect. The peaceful setting was a great way to spend an hour or so.

The gardens are beautiful and the guided tour fantastic. However, the staff was rude and clueless. The shuttle bus did not run. This left about 20 elderly people waiting for over 30 minutes not realizing it was not coming. The staff did not seem to think it was important to leave a note. Another staff member was ready to escort one person out because they were using a cell phone near the enterance. There was no notice saying no cell phones. I would say please visit but keep these aggrevating things in mind.