We had a fantastic relaxing stay, just what we needed. The place was roomy, beautiful, and clean. For our needs we were centrally located to all the places we needed to go. About 10 to 15 minutes from Downtown Salem and Willamette University. Loved having a kitchen and washer & dryer. Seating out on the back patio area would have been nice, to be honest it was too hot most of the time to have been able to take full advantage of that. Communication with Ray and Tammy was easy and they were very responsive and helpful. The place is close to grocery stores and basically anything you might need to stock the pantry. The place was as described in the advertisement. Except I wouldn’t say the 3rd room has a twin bed I would describe it as a full size bed. There is a TV for streaming and a few card/board games. Dinning room table fits 6 easily. We can’t wait to go back.
Things to do:
You must go and visit the Silver Falls Park, pack a picnic lunch and plan to stay all day, it’s incredibly beautiful and about a 30 minute drive give or take. The Gordon House (Frank Lloyd Wright last house he designed) was the next stop, and then Willamette Valley pies was the last stop on our way back to the Air B&B, and well worth it, for a piece of pie. We got an apple hand pie, Marion berry (Blackberry) hand pie, and a slice of Strawberry Rhubarb pie, they were all delicious..
The Yard food truck park was also a wonderful find lots of different types of food, wine, beer, and full bar.
Cozy Taverna is a wonderful tapas restaurant with a full bar in Downtown Salem everything we ate there was amazing. The goat cheese dumplings were to die for, you well need some garlic bread to sop up the sauce you will want to get every last drop. Squid ink pasta you must eat it all there, we had some leftover and reheating it later just wasn’t nearly as good as it was fresh. Flourless chocolate cake and the French Toast Desserts were heavenly. We did have some of the French Toast dessert leftover which was very yummy for breakfast the next morning.
Wild Pear is a small little cafe also in Downtown Salem it was great for lunch with a variety of food. My husband had a roast beef and blue cheese sandwich with fries, our daughter had the veggie wrap with half/half sweet potato and regular fries, and I had the heirloom tomato sandwich with the steak chili soup. We were all very happy with our meals.
Sassy Onion was a great brunch spot walking distance from Willamette University/Willamette Heritage Center. There our daughter had the berry french toast (blueberries and strawberries), you can get it with just one type of berries if you prefer. It did not need any syrup, but they have maple and marion berry if you have a sweeter tooth than us. I had their biscuits and gravy with bacon (reminded me of my Granny’s). My husband had the mess in a skillet (you can get it as a burrito as well) he had left overs (which is not like him), that was okay because I got to finish it off the next day for breakfast and it was delicious.
Roger that Barbecue was another great eatery. Check for their operating hours, closing time occurs when they run out of meat or at the posted closing time which ever happens first. They have a two meat combo with the choice of two sides. One combo feeds two people (trust me). My husband didn’t believe me or the staff and insisted on getting two combos and we had lots of leftovers. But there was no complaining about that since the pork ribs and beef brisket was amazingly delicious. The ribs fell off the bone and you didn’t need a knife to cut the brisket. I suggest you get the beans as one of your sides. The kick it up corn was mild with not much flavor, fries and tater tots were good.
We went to a couple wineries while we were visiting as well, both very lovely. Bethel Heights Vineyards and Bjornson Winery.
Bjornson we sat out on the balcony with beautiful views and stayed there for about 3 hours enjoying the tasting, views and meat and cheese plate we ordered.
Bethel Heights we sat inside (Because the shaded spots outside were taken). Not certain if they offered food or not, we had just eaten so we didn’t ask. We stayed for about two hours. Worth a call to ask about food or if you can bring your own.
There are many more things to do and see lots of good food around and of course a trip to Portland is only about an hour away.
Hope everyone who stays here enjoys it as much as we did.