We were headed just an hour and a half North East to the city of Baltimore. It was a relatively simple drive along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and before we knew it, we had arrived.
We checked into our hotel where we were welcomed by a couple of bottles of local beers and a Sangria, before heading out to explore.
There have been so many underestimated places on the east coast, probably because this is an area we just hadn't experienced as much as the West coast in our previous trips of America. Baltimore immediately added itself to this list. We had only planned a day here, mainly because we are now short on time and need to get back to Miami for our flight home before the visa expires but also because we had read that Baltimore had a number of dodgy areas in and around the tourist areas and we thought spending too much time here might lead to us accidentally finding ourselves somewhere we shouldn't be.
We were staying in Inner Harbor as our research said this was the main tourist area where you can walk or grab a water taxi to the key sites. From out hotel, we walked across the road to the water's edge where there was the 7-mile brick Waterfront Promenade.
Here we saw the USS Constellation, the last all-sail war ship built by the U.S. Navy and the only Civil War-era vessel still afloat.
Part way along the the Promenade, we came to the Baltimore World Trade Center which is also the World's tallest regular pentagonal building.
Outside the Trade Center building was a memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, dedicated 10 years after the attacks. The memorial includes three 22-foot long steel beams from the New York World Trade Center, which were part of the 94th to 96th floors of the north tower. These had been fused together and placed alongside damaged limestone pieces from the Pentagon’s west wall.
We bought a ticket to head up to the 27th floor of the World Trade Center, called "Top of the World", to see the 360-degree panoramic view of the city. The view was awesome and we enjoyed trying to spot the different buildings from the map at each window.
Unlike other "Top of the World" experiences we have had in the past in skyscrapers, there was more than the view here. We learnt about the history of Baltimore from different information stations around the floor and from fun interactive games. But there was also a more sobering side, with a museum for the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks, including a detailed timeline of what happened when, artifacts from the twin towers and Pentagon, an exhibit dedicated to the passengers of Flight 93, details of all the 68 Marylanders who lost their lives that day and on the windows of the building, the names of every victim from the attack. This memorial was on par with the one we had seen in Oklahoma. It was a place that made you stop, think and remember.
We headed out of the Trade Center after about an hour and continued our walk along the Waterfront Promenade.
The water taxis in Baltimore are not as regular as you are led to believe. We thought they would be like buses, arriving regularly throughout the day at their stops along the harbour. We found that they only picked up from stops every couple of hours and the times were variable, maybe we were just in the off season with a limited service. We planned to reach one of the water taxi stops in time to catch it over to Fell's Point and after a short 10 minute wait, a water taxi docked and we boarded.
The water taxi was cheap at only $9 per person for a one way trip and allowed us to rest our tired feet and enjoy the sites of Baltimore from the water.
Established around the mid 1700's, we had wanted to visit Fell's Point to learn about the historic waterfront community which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was known for its shipbuilding, pirates and mass immigration. But it wasn't just the culture that had driven us here, we'd also been told that this area had the greatest concentration of bars in the whole of Baltimore, 120 in this one area!
As we pulled into the Fell's Point dock, we noticed that something was going on. It was packed full of people and stalls. Our planned quiet stroll along the cobblestoned streets learning about the history whilst popping into a bar or two for refreshment was thrown out into the water the moment we stepped off the water taxi. You could barely walk due to the number of people who were packed between stalls selling local food, crafts and produce. There were several stages outside with musicians and every bar looked packed inside and out.
We later found out that the festival was actually the Fell's Point Fun Festival, initially set up in 1966 to raise funds and awareness against a freeway that was planned to run straight through the neighborhood. There was no freeway but the festival continues every October and apparently is attended by over 700,000 people.
We walked through the festival looking at the stalls before finally finding a bar at one end of the main street which quieter than the others so we could have a rest stop.
Refuelled, we headed back into the madness to explore some more of the stalls and to find some food.
We were told by a local (we'd met in the previous bar) that we couldn't visit Baltimore without trying a crab cake. "You ain't had a crab cake until you'd had a Baltimore crab cake". So we headed to the stall selling not just Baltimore's greatest crab cake but the World's!
Served in a bread bun, it really was the best crab cake I've ever tasted and eating it in the middle of a Festival listening to music and watching all the drunk people around us, probably just made it taste even better (if that's even possible for a World's greatest).
Right next door to the crab cake stand, was one of the biggest BBQ's I've ever seen filled with huge chunks of meat. The smell was amazing but unfortunately we were both far too fall to squeeze anything else down. Americans know how to do street food well!
We continued to do a bit more exploring both of the festival, the local sites and of course, some of the 120 bars. With a huge concentration of bars in one area, it was great to see how each bar had found a uniqueness. One of our favourites was Max's who asides from having loads of different beers on tap and in bottles, was covered in memorabilia and antiques.
The party went into the night but it reached a point for us when the streets turned from festival into drunken night out and the bars went from chilled Sunday afternoon drinks to late night clubbing. We decided it was time to head back to our hotel. We booked an Uber, grabbed a cookie from Insomnia Cookies (which does awesome cookies throughout the day and night) and headed back to our hotel in Inner Harbor.
Whilst I think we underestimated Baltimore and need to return here one day to give it the proper time it needs to explore, it wasn't until we were chatting to the Uber driver on the way home that we really understood the reviews we'd read about the safety of this city. Like any city, you have to be careful where you go and what you do. We tend to stick to the tourist areas which generally are safer. Most cities have good areas and bad areas but the difference with Baltimore is that those areas can be blocks next to each other rather than whole neighborhoods or districts.
Unless you are a local, you might walk down a perfectly safe street into a less safe street without even realising it. We noticed this in our Uber home where we went from an upmarket street straight into a street containing a lot of homelessness and poverty before hitting another street which again, looked safe. Our advise to anyone visit Baltimore is to stick to Inner Harbor (the main tourist area), research how to get to places outside Inner Harbor that you want to visit (are they safe to walk, is there a water taxi or should you Uber) and if travelling at night, always take an Uber.
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