Where in the world is Peter Greenberg?

Why, he’s in Bend, Oregon, broadcasting his radio show from the McMenamins Old St. Francis School Hotel, a quirky hotel/pub/movie theater housed in a former Catholic school. (In fact, Peter broadcast from the Rambler Ambassador Room, named after the nuns’ first car, a 1968 Dodge Rambler Ambassador.)

Bend, a surprisingly sophisticated little Central Oregon town, is located at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

Visitors might be surprised to learn that because Bend is located on the east side of the mountains, the climate tends to be dry … and sunny!

If you’re headed to Bend in the autumn, check out Fall Foliage Getaways: Leaf-Peeping for All featuring the nearby Willamette National Forest.

Bend is mostly known for outdoor recreation and beer. So we checked in with the locals to find out where and how they like to spend their free time around town.

Kevin Max, publisher and editor of 1859 Oregon’s Magazine

Bend is tops when it comes to microbrews and pubs in which to enjoy them. There’s Deschutes Brewery, Bend Brewing Company and Cascade Lakes Brewing for starters. But my favorite comes in a pint of amber from Silver Moon Taproom. Set in an unassuming location on Greenwood Avenue, it’s old-school swilling in an old-school setting.

A lot of us are in Bend for recreation and the outdoors. At social gatherings, I’m the exotic case who has no Olympic resume nor aspirations. My wife, Sarah, and I moved to Bend in 2002 thinking that we’d do a lot of climbing at Smith Rock. Instead she ended up becoming an elite Nordic skier and I an avid trail runner.

The skinny is that there are hundreds of miles of trails, many of them primarily for mountain biking. Since mountain bikers aren’t out of bed until noon or off work until later, that leaves an empty network of trails open in the mornings. The river trail south of town, Shevlin Park and the Phil’s Trail network are a few of my favorites.

When you leave a city like New York (which my wife and I did post-9/11) for a town like Bend, you can feel like you’re trading culture for the outdoors. Locally though, the Tower Theatre (www.towertheatre.org) in downtown Bend brings in world class music, films and speakers. In New York, you’d pay more to see the same acts on a stage a trillion miles from your seat. At the Tower, there’s the intimacy of your own private media room without having to “stand on line” for tickets. Yes, I said “on line.”

A Bend hotel made the list in Historic Hotels: Unusual Stays With a Unique Past.

John Gottburg Anderson, internationally published freelance writer, editor and photographer, and columnist for the Bend Bulletin

Even though you haven’t left town, you still feel as if you’re on a wilderness trek when walking along the Deschutes River Trail. The two sides of this trail, which follows both sides of the Deschutes River, are linked by a footbridge 1.5 miles upstream (south) from Farewell Bend Park, near the Old Mill District. It’s a great place for a trail run or a brisk hike with the dogs, and you can count upon seeing trout anglers casting their flies.

Bend is known to have the highest number of restaurants per capita for any community in Oregon. One of my personal favorites is JOOLZ (www.joolzbend.com) on Wall Street downtown, specializing in Lebanese food with a high-desert twist (example: Hummus on the Range, the classic chick-pea dip with braised elk medallions and pine nuts). Another is Hola! (www.holabend.com) with cafés on Bend’s east side and in the Shops at the Old Mill District; its chefs are Mexican, Peruvian and Brazilian, and they serve up gourmet Latin-flavored entrees from all three cultures.

There are no fewer than seven brewpubs in the greater Bend area. Best known nationally is the Deschutes Brewery, which ships its Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Black Butte Porter all over the country. But Cascade Lakes, Silver Moon, Ten Barrel and the Bend Brewing Company should not be overlooked by visitors to this city.

Kelly Cannon-Miller, executive director, Deschutes County Historical Society

To discover historic Bend while here, the first stop has to be the Deschutes Historical Museum in historic Reid School. At the Museum, you can get a sense of what Bend was like when it was a lumber town with the two biggest pine mills in the world and locals had big dreams that accompanied them as they settled Bend. You can also pick up copies of the two local Heritage Walk booklets for a stroll through Bend’s two historic districts.

Check out the Travel Photo Essay – Haystack Rock, Oregon.

A walk through the Drake Park Historic Neighborhood and along Mirror Pond and one can get a glimpse of the early 20th-century Craftsman-style homes that dominate Bend’s style. The history shared along the walk, both from the booklet and its interpretive signs hints at the tremendous sense of community that existed from Bend’s very beginnings.

Mirror Pond’s existence also provides a “hidden” history—strolling along the banks at Drake Park, visitors can’t see the dams that effect the river’s flow and creates Mirror Pond. While one can marvel at its beauty and float along the river, the dam that creates Mirror Pond is one of several along the river’s route that provide irrigation for local farmers and ranchers making a living on the edge of Oregon’s desert regions.

While Bend has a wealth of wonderful restaurants, my favorite little downtown spot for a bite to eat is Jackson’s Corner in the old Delaware Market building.

After a thorough renovation and remodel to the building, this is a wonderful little eatery that serves wonderful food in a neighborhood setting, serves local beers and it just makes one happy to eat there. It is located inside the Old Mill Historic District, a little off the main thoroughfare of Wall and Bond Streets, but very much worth seeking out.

Looking for more Oregon travel advice? Tune in for Peter’s radio show from Bend.