Experience the best of Ashland

Ashland lies at the south end of the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon, near the California border, with the Siskiyou Mountains rising behind it. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, begun in 1935, draws theatre-goers with plays staged in three theatres, one of them an outdoor Elizabethan stage. Lithia Park, laid out in 1914, runs up a wooded creek canyon from the central plaza.

Mount Ashland, with a ski area on its upper slopes, is crossed by the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Rogue River offers whitewater rafting. Vineyards fill the Applegate and Rogue valleys, and Crater Lake National Park, whose deep blue lake lies in the caldera of a collapsed volcano, is a long drive north-east. Medford lies a short way north-west.

Farm-to-table restaurants serve the produce of the valley, including its pears, and local cheeses and wines are on the tables near the plaza. Summers are hot and dry, winters mild, and the theatre season runs through the warmer months.