Baltimore, Maryland Travel Guide

Okay, I will totally admit that I am extremely biased towards my home town of Baltimore, Maryland, as a place for folks to visit. Each and every time I go back to the place that I’ll always consider home is an extremely emotional and truly joyous event for me.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Much of my family has, sadly, Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½passed away, but my mother still lives in the concrete Cape Cod style bungalow in which I was raised for the first nineteen years of my life. It’s located on a quiet residential street right on the fringe of Baltimore City and Baltimore County in an area popularly known as “Gardenville”.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ The homes are small, especially by today’s standards, but the memories of that area have lasted a lifetime for me.

But enough with the reminiscing! Over the years (and I’m going back decades and decades here), Baltimore held the title of being somewhat of a ‘backwater’, ‘blue collar’ town. If you lived in Baltimore, it was generally because you were born here and stayed because of your family. Back in the early 1960’s, following the terrible series of race riots in downtown Baltimore, developer Rouse came in and presented the city of Baltimore with a Renaissance initiative.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ The result was Baltimore’s now world-wide renowned Inner Harbor, a fabulous collection of building built around the downtown harbor area featuring a wide variety of shopping, restaurants, and entertainment.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ (The Inner Harbor complex is located right downtown and borders Pratt Street.) Chain stores such as The Gap, Chico’s, Victoria’s Secret, Hollister, Hallmark, Banana Republic, Kitchen Kapers, Godiva, Ann Taylor, Talbot’s, Fossil and many more are staples of the shopping venues. However, there are also dozens and dozens of charming boutique-styled stores and shops located in the four buildings of the Inner Harbor as well, specializing in Chesapeake Bay cuisine (crab spices, Maryland home style cook books, stuffed toy crabs and lobsters, crab and oyster soup bases), fabulous one of a kind childrens’ and women’s clothing shops, unique and specialty book stores and much more. (Thre is also an enclosed Harbor Place Mall located directly across the street from the Inner Harbor Harbor Place complex itself, featuring higher-end stores such as Gucci and Coach, among others. This two-story mall is perfect for days when the weather is iffy or cold, and certainly worth the time spent browsing, if not buying!) As for Harbor Place’s restaurants, it’s been said that you could spent two sold weeks dining there for lunch and dinner, and still not ‘hit’ all of the establishments offering food. There are the proverbial raw bar items (i.e., shrimp, oysters, clams and in some cases those wonderful Maryland blue crabs) as well as restaurants (Phillip’s) devoted mostly to Maryland cuisine. There are also several Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese and sushi bars as well from which to choose. Since Harbor Place opens early, you can enjoy a McDonalds breakfast or a homemade omelette made using fresh Maryland crab meat! (General overall hours are from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, but some shops and restaurants open earlier and stay opened later depending upon the season. You can pretty much be assured that during the summer months of June, July and August, the Harbor Place complex at the Inner Harbor will be open at least from 9 AM to 9 PM.)Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Most of the establishments accept all major credit cards, but a few of the smaller, mom and pop boutique places accept cash or traveler’s checks only.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Harbor Place is centered around a large, open air space during which concerts are offered (free) on most summer evenings, where you can also enjoy your newly purchased crabcake sandwich or cup of Maryland vegetable crab soup, or watch the street performers – singers, musicians, jugglers, painters (whose work is nearly always available for purchase) – get their creative juices on. Be sure to wear comfortable walking shoes!

Steps away from Harbor Place is the Baltimore Hard Rock Cafe. This chain restaurant is extremely popular with tourists looking to purchase souveniors from their visit (tee shirts, pins, hats, sweatshirts), but frankly the better food can be purchased in Harbor Place itself. There are also tours of the Pride of Baltimore, a fabulous ‘tall ship’ docked at the Pratt Street dock, which shouldn’t be missed. Stroll around Baltimore’s downtown docks; there are charter boats available for a trip around the harbor, and there’s also a ferry boat service that picks up riders from the dock and drops them off at different points in the immediate vicinity. Both daytime and evening chartered cruises are available for lunch and dinner, with some charters offering sailings for Sunday morning brunch as well.

But Baltimore is so much more than its fabled Harbor Place sites and attractions. On the other side of the Baltimore Harbor is the National Aquarium in Baltimore (501 East Pratt Street). This is a great family attraction, one in which you can enjoy at least an entire day (but get there early! The National Aquarium is almost a requisite field trip for local city and neighboring county schools, and is rated tops amongst the city’s attractions.)Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ With a 1300 square foot amphitheater and a 1,200,000 gallon pool that houses Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and tons of underwater viewing areas, it’s a particularly good find when the weather is bad. (At the National Aquarium, you can also pay to spend the night in one of those underwater areas surrounded by stringrays, zebra sharks and other creatures of the sea.) Be sure to catch the twice a day interactive Dolphin Show; it’s a winner for both kids and their parents.

For inquisitive minds who want to know, pay a visit to the Maryland Science Center, located downtown at 601 Light Street. The MSC is actually one of the most popular attractions in the Inner Harbor itself. Catch an educational/fun movie on the IMAX wide screen theater and get involved in the interactive displays and exhibits. Everything here is very hands-on, so it’s a great place to take the kids. It was originally known as the Maryland Academy of Sciences when it opened 200 years ago, which makes it one of the oldest scientific institutions in the entire country. Its three floors of exhibits include the very popular Outer Space Place, home of the Hubble Space Telescope National Visitor Center, and Space Link, which offers a live link to NASA. Be sure to visit the Davis Planetarium as well.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Another downtown Baltimore ‘learning is fun’ spot is Port Discovery, located at 35 Market Street. Boasting a huge three-story gym, PD also has some pretty amazing exhibits as well as many hands-on experiments as well. It’s a cool balance of active learning activities, arts and crafts, and that awesome climbing gym.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½

Other downtown sites you might want to consider are the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum (especially during the Halloween season!), Baltimore’s Holocaust Memorial, the Mount Clare Museum House, the National Museum of Dentistry (which is somewhat unsettling but also informative, especially for older kids), and the relatively new National Lacrosse Museum and Academy. (Maryland is home to many of the country’s most outstanding male and female lacrosse players – and fans – in the country.)

Located nearby is Baltimore’s “Little Italy”, an area hosting nearly two dozen Italian restaurants, carry out shops, and delightful little bistros, many of them with outdoor decks and seating areas. Prices range from the inexpensive to the gourmet-priced meal, and many of these restaurants have been in business in their original location for over thirty years. (Have a craving for high-end, beautifully prepared and presented Spanish food? Ask your cab driver to take you to Tio Pepe’s, which has also been around for decades and boasts an eclectic yet traditional menu of Spanish fare.)Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Also in the downtown area is the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. Located at the end of East Fort Avenue, 2400 Fort Avenue to be exact, you’ll the inspiration for Francis Scott Key’s “The Star Spangled Banner” here. The star-shaped brick fort has an awesome view of the harbor and authentically recreated structures. If you’re into history, this is a must-see in Baltimore.

If contemporary art is of interest to you, you can’t miss at the American Visionary Art Museum (800 Key Highway). A very interesting and unique museum, it’s quite unlike Baltimore’s other art museums in that its exhibits follow a theme but its works are produced by people who often have little, if any, formal art training. Ordinary citizens grasp the opportunity to express themselves in a variety of media creations – and be sure to check out the art in the restrooms!

Baltimore’s premier ‘old line’ art museum is the Baltimore Museum of Art, located at 10 Art Museum Drive (about a 25 minute drive from downtown). Boasting an excellent Matisse collection, the BMA also has several Picassos and Monets, with its new contemporary wing home to several Andy Warhol works, including his “Last Supper”.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Designed by John Russell Pope. who was the architect of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the BMA is extremely well laid out. Its Matisse collection was assembled by Baltimore art legends Claribel and Etta Cone, who returned home to Baltimore from Paris in the 1920’s with armfuls of modern and impressionist art; their treasures are housed in the eponyous Cone Wing. There is also a cool, quirky restaurant, “Gertrude’s” on site, which serves up some pretty inspired dishes including crab cakes in several forms.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ Not far away from the BMA is the Homewood campus of world-renowned Johns Hopkins University, worth a visit for its beautiful landscapes and architecture as well as the whiff of ‘genius’ in the air!

Looking for something just a little bit quirky? The Hampden neighborhood is Baltimore’s answer to NYC’s East Village, and also home to film maker John Waters. (Most of his movies were shot on location in Baltimore.) Not far away is Baltimore’s “Greek Town”, located on Broadway. Actually the entire promendate of Broadway is more than a bit like SoHo, with amazing eateries (including some of the best Greek food you’ll ever taste), funky-cheap souvenir shops, clothing resale and consignment shops, and some truly unique clothing boutiques, especially for women’s wear. This is the part of Baltimore city where you’ll find plastic flowers ‘potted’ in clay baskets or popped into the ground of a miniscule lawn, where screen doors sport hand-painted pictures – landscapes, sports logos, pastural settings – on them, and where the marble front door steps are routinely and pristinely scrubbed nearly daily. It’s one of the most diverse and fun areas of the entire city!

But the main reason why I would recommend Baltimore as a top city to visit? It’s about the charm, folks. People here do consider themselves Southerners who have a calmer, gentler way about themselves. They are uniformly friendly and eager to help, especially to those of you who haven’t experienced the joy that is Baltimore before!