Life in Paradise

If the Willamette Valley is Paradise, Eugene is the heart of Paradise.

Why? Some say it's the combination of small-town familiarity and big-city culture: lots of bookstores, plenty of great restaurants, cabarets, coffee shops, and concert halls in a place where you're just as likely to hit the town in Birkenstocks as you are in evening wear. Others feel it's the idyllic natural environment, with the lush green foliage year-round and the daffodils in January.

If simply being here isn't entertainment enough for you, Eugene is also home to professional ballet, opera, and symphonic orchestra companies, to name only a few cultural opportunities. It's the ideal stopping point on a well-traveled path that carries the likes of Blues Traveler, Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams, Ziggy Marley, Fishbone, Sara McLachlan, the Indigo Girls, Public Enemy, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, U2, the Cure, Dishwalla, the Cranberries, and Elvis Costello up and down the West Coast in search of the perfect audience. They find it in Eugene.

You'll find more than 157 city parks, 250 miles of bike paths and jogging trails, riverside parks, and an outstanding bus system UO students can ride free. You can even use it to get out of town for fishing, floating, or just plain relaxing on the banks of a river.

About an hour west of campus you'll find the Pacific Ocean, where you can see whales, boats, and sunsets from which you'll never completely recover. Or head east and up to the Willamette Pass ski area for great powder or miles of groomed cross-country trails.

Then, is you still long for an out-of-Eugene experience, zip up to Portland (107 miles north) for a Trail Blazers basketball game or a tour of Washington Park's International Rose Test Garden (the City of Roses has been hosting an annual Rose Festival since 1907). Or hop a flight out of the Eugene Airport to the destination of your choice.

For more information about the area, call the Convention & Visitors Association of Lane County Oregon at (800) 547-5445. Or visit its web site at http://www.cvalco.org/.