Back from Baltimore and Annapolis

My husband and I took a short holiday to Baltimore and Annapolis this weekend. I found excellent hotel prices on Hotwire in both places, the Sheraton City Center in Baltimore and the Westin in Annapolis. Both cities were thick with people. As cultural travelers, we went to the expected places, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery as our main destinations. Both had great shows and both were FREE. Amazing. How do they do it?

We ate in Fells Point at the famous restaurant Bertha's known for its mussels--and for its green bumper stickers that say "Eat Bertha's Mussels." The mussels were the largest I have ever seen. Succulent. For lunch at the BMA we both had crab cakes at Gertrude's, one of the real gems in Baltimore cuisine.

We got recommendations for our visit from Rob Saarnio, a colleague and old friend now living in Hawaii and from Nick Rudolph, who works as a business specialist with Baltimore Main Streets. Both steered us to some great places, including Federal Hill, with its expansive view of the Inner Harbor from high above, and Tides Point, further down the river, with a great bay side view of Fells Point.

Federal Hill and Fells Point are both local Main Street communities, and look good. Fells Point is a lively entertainment district with bars and restaurants galore. Federal Hill's main drag Light Street serves the community surrounding it. Some great housing stock in both places. We also wandered around the area near Johns Hopkins' main campus and the lovely neighborhood of Glenside. Ian wanted to see both the HL Menkin House and the Poe House, which we drove by and photographed, so we saw some other parts of Baltimore that a tourist might not see. Both historic sites were closed.

We were charmed by Mount Vernon Place and its four small parks. We had a hearty breakfast at Spoons across the street from the Cross Street Market, one of the many thriving public markets in Baltimore.

We ended up in Annapolis in time to tour the Paca House and its recreated garden, owned by the Historic Annapolis Foundation. The tour of the house and garden took about 1.5 hours and we had an agreeable guide and a small group of 10. Seemed like Annapolis was still teeming with folks staying for the weekend after the graduation ceremonies from the Naval Academy on Friday. The best meal of the weekend was at Cafe Normandy on Main Street, which served traditional French bistro dishes, in a nice atmosphere, with great service. The bouillabaisse was excellent as was the traditional surf and turf.

Spent a great deal of time walking the streets radiating out from the State Capital building--closed for restoration. Like the commercial districts in Baltimore, the storefronts were beautifully restored, while others were simply maintained from their 1880s or turn of the century appearance. Main Street in Annapolis was full of baby carriages, baby boomer couples like us and young families, not a demographic I completely expected. Some upscale women's chain stores like Chico's or White House/Black Market, but the vast majority of the shops were independents. There were a fair number of tea shirt shops/Navy apparel, at least four upscale jewelers and various ice cream shoppes.

The Historic Annapolis Foundation runs a gift shop in the city dock area and has an adjacent building that houses exhibits called History Quest, which can best be described as a visitor center and starting point for the many tours offered by costumed and non-costumed guides of the historic district. There are restrooms, a small gift shop and exhibits on all three floors of this handsomely restored brick building. The building is dedicated to St. Clare Wright, the indomitable spirit behind the early preservation work of Historic Annapolis Foundation.

We found Cafe Normandy, on our walk up Main Street from the city dock area after visiting the History Quest building. On Western Avenue on the other side of Church Circle, there were at least 6 different restaurant/pubs, all independently owned. There were more service businesses on this side of town along with the Visitors Center. With small signs, it is hard to find the first time around, since you approach the site from the back, and are directed to a paid parking garage, and then only a small sign directs you to the Visitor Center proper.

The traditional Memorial Day Parade went on this morning in the downtown, which we decided to skip because we could not get to it easily with many blocked off streets. On our way back through the Eastern Shore, we passed through Chestertown Maryland, and Odessa and New Castle both in Delaware. All had superb residential architecture, beautifully restored and maintained. Chestertown has a cute downtown worth visiting on a non-holiday weekend, when everything was closed.

Odessa's historic homes, once managed by Winterthur, have now been turned back to private use from what we could see from the street. And New Castle's four block long downtown adjacent to the Green, has a smattering of shops catering to residents in this charming community. There was a large contingent of people using the waterfront park today.

Our weekend was a nice get away, despite the cost of gas. I cannot imagine that we are different than the majority of American's, who are eager for a break, but not willing to travel too far or spend our entire stimulus check on a tank of gas or two.