Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is a manicured, safe, and family-friendly area of an otherwise hardscrabble city. It’s a world apart from the rough and tumble city portrayed in The Wire. Adjacent to downtown and rimming an inlet of the waterfront, Inner Harbor includes restaurants, tourist shopping, and the excellent National Aquarium. Camden Yards, the historic baseball stadium and home to the Baltimore Orioles, is right next to it. And the whole area has been designed to be pretty much self-contained so that visitors to Baltimore never need step outside this little bubble of visitor-friendliness. Hotels, large chain shopping, lots of eateries, and entertainment is all within a short stroll. It may be a tourist-friendly haven and a far cry from the “real” Baltimore, but it’s a fun place to visit for a day trip or overnight stay.
The nearby Federal Hill, an historic site in its own right, offers a panoramic view of Baltimore’s city skyline. At its base is a fun art museum, the American Visionary Art Museum.
Baltimore’s National Aquarium, including the pyramid at right, is one of the main attractions of the revitalized waterfront. The USS Constellation, dating to the 1850s and the last of the Civil War-era naval tall ships, has been restored and forms a floating museum for tourists to visit on board.
Photos of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor
