Portland, Oregon’s largest city, sits on the Columbia and Willamette rivers, in the shadow of snow-capped Mount Hood. It’s known for its parks, bridges and bicycle paths, as well as for its eco-friendliness and its microbreweries and coffeehouses. Iconic Washington Park encompasses sites from the formal Japanese Garden to Oregon Zoo and its railway. The city hosts thriving art, theater and music scenes.
Top Road Trip: 3 Days From Nashville To New Orleans

April 23, 2021 7:01 am ET
Day 1: Nashville to Oxford, Miss
254 Miles
Land in Nashville the afternoon before the drive to explore the new National Museum of African American Music (510 Broadway, nmaam.org). Its imaginative interactive displays explain the evolution of genres from gospel to R&B to hip hop. Find fresh air in Centennial Park and a to-scale replica of Greece’s Parthenon (nashvilleparthenon.com). Stashed inside the temple: a 42-foot-tall gilded statue of the deity Athena whose lips are allegedly modeled after Elvis Presley’s kisser. Music City’s other current goddess is Dolly Parton. Her image is sprinkled throughout the candy-colored country-music themed Graduate Hotel (from $169 a night; graduatehotels.com).

Day 2: Oxford to Natchez
256 Miles
After chicken and waffles at Oxford’s popular Big Bad Breakfast (bigbadbreakfast.com), drive east toward Pontotoc then south toward Troy to rejoin the Trace. A stop near Milepost 221 affords a glimpse of the Old Trace, a forest trench worn deep into the earth by countless feet. For lunch, seek out Saltine, an oyster bar in a former suburban Jackson elementary school (jackson.saltinerestaurant.com). Approaching its Natchez terminus, the Trace grows wilder. Wisps of Spanish moss, dangling vines and the nearby Windsor Ruins, an immense mansion burned in 1890, evoke a lost world. Windsor’s surviving columns with their ornate, crumbling capitals resembling a plantation Palmyra.
Day 3: Natchez to New Orleans
173 miles
Before heading to New Orleans, walk the promenade on Natchez’s Bluff Park overlooking the Mississippi. Head south to Baton Rouge on Highway 61, the famed “Blues Highway.” (Most of the musical history lies further north in Mississippi’s Delta.) The landscape rolls by fast: The 90-minute drive should get you to Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital, by lunch. Visit the deli at Tony’s Seafood market (tonyseafood.com) for to-go oyster po’boys and ginger cake, then eat them in the landscaped grounds of the Louisiana State Capitol. Conceived by rabble-rousing populist governor Huey Long, the 1932 building is a 34-story art deco skyscraper, the country’s tallest state house and a monument to the Kingfish’s Kong-sized ego. Bullet holes from Long’s 1935 assassination remain just off the ornate lobby.
Walks: Île de la Cité In Paris, France (Video)
The Île de la Cité is one of two remaining natural river islands in the Seine within the city of Paris. It is the center of Paris and the location where the medieval city was refounded.
Sunday Morning Podcast: Latest News From Zurich, Bangkok And London
Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, talks to film producer Solène Léger, Rob Cox from Reuters and Christoph Amend from ‘Zeit Magazin’. Plus, contributions from Monocle’s team around the world.
Island Views: The ‘Republic Of Maldives’ (4K Video)
Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, is a small archipelagic state in South Asia situated in the Indian Ocean. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about 700 kilometres from the Asian continent’s mainland.
California Views: ‘Palm Springs Air Museum’
The Palm Springs Air Museum, is a non-profit educational institution in Palm Springs, Riverside County, California. The Museum’s mission is to exhibit, educate and eternalize the role of the World War II combat aircraft and the role the pilots and American citizens had in winning the war.
City Views: ‘Dubai – United Arab Emirates’ (4K Video)
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates known for luxury shopping, ultramodern architecture and a lively nightlife scene. Burj Khalifa, an 830m-tall tower, dominates the skyscraper-filled skyline. At its foot lies Dubai Fountain, with jets and lights choreographed to music. On artificial islands just offshore is Atlantis, The Palm, a resort with water and marine-animal parks.
Classic French Cars: ‘1969 Renault 4L Plein Air’
Feel the freedom. the 1969 Renault 4 Plein Air, a roofless, doorless car for a liberating driving experience happy 60th anniversary to Renault 4.
The Plein Air was introduced in the spring of 1968. Plein Airs were converted by Renault group company Sinpar S.A. from regular 4 speed R1123’s produced by Renault. A R1123 selected for conversion entered Sinpar’s premises as a complete R4 Berline to undergo a complete make-over and leave without doors and roof to be delivered to clients who had ordered their Plein Air from one of Renault’s dealers worl-wide. Plein Airs were actually sold and delivered into France, Canada, United States, Mexico, Finland, Germany, UK and the Netherlands. In 1968 approx. 20 Plein Airs were exported to Canada to be used on the site of the 1968 Terre des Hommes World Exhibition in Montreal. Approximately 500 Plein Airs were produced by Sinpar until 1971, when it was succeeded by the R4 ACL Rodeo. After 1971 Renault continued to offer Plein Air conversion kits for self-made plein airs, but little is known about their number.
Aerial Views: The Rocky Coastlines Of ‘Sardinia’
Sardinia is a large Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. It has nearly 2,000km of coastline, sandy beaches and a mountainous interior crossed with hiking trails. Its rugged landscape is dotted with thousands of nuraghi – mysterious Bronze Age stone ruins shaped like beehives. One of the largest and oldest nuraghi is Su Nuraxi in Barumini, dating to 1500 B.C.
Design: Top 10 Electric Cars For 2021-2022 (Video)
It is hard to predict what the electric automotive future holds for us, but we say can one thing for sure: never again will the car designs be boring. To prove this statement, today we will cover the latest EV news and showcase the most prominent newcomers that not only have revolutionary propulsion systems, but also radical inside-out looks.