In Little Italy, even the fire hydrants proclaim the neighborhood’s ethnic roots; they’re painted green, white, and red, the colors of the Italian flag. Depending on the day, you may find yourself at a bocce tournament or joining the folks who lug their folding chairs to the parking lot at Ciao Bella restaurant to watch the movies projected onto the side of the building. Footbridges connect this immigrant enclave to the Inner Harbor.
Just beyond Little Italy is lively Fells Point, which was a thriving seaport when America was still a collection of colonies. It’s a handsome, intact community with cobblestone streets and 18th-century buildings that house small owner-run shops and restaurants. Bars, many featuring live music, line South Broadway and the adjoining streets, drawing huge weekend crowds. (For more nightlife, head a bit further east to Canton, Fells Point’s hip neighbor.)
A mile or so north of the Inner Harbor, straight up Charles Street (the dividing line for east-west addresses), is Mount Vernon, a fashionable neighborhood of museums, monuments, and 19th-century mansions. It’s also home to Baltimore’s Restaurant Row. Head a few blocks west to the 800 block of North Howard Street to find Antiques Row, the city’s prime antiques district.
MUST-SEE MUSEUMS From the dolphins at the National Aquarium to the Asian and European masterworks at the Walters Art Museum (600 N. Charles St., 410.547.9000), museum-rich Baltimore has a collection guaranteed to make you ooh and aah. Here’s a wide-ranging sampling to get you started.
An ever-growing accumulation of sports memorabilia proved to be too much of a good thing for the space-challenged Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum (216 Emory St., 410.727.1539). The Bambino’s bats, baseballs, and uniforms still inhabit the little house where he was born, but the bulk of the collection now fills the nearby 20,000 square-foot Sports Legends at Camden Yards, where 14 galleries highlight Johnny Unitas, Cal Ripken Jr., the Baltimore Orioles and Colts, and Negro Leagues in Maryland (301 W. Camden St., 410.727.1539; www.sportslegendsatcamdenyards.com).
Railroad buffs rejoice! The sprawling Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, ravaged by a fierce 2003 snowstorm that smashed windows, collapsed roofs, and damaged more than 150,000 artifacts, is fully restored and reopened (901 W. Pratt St., 410.752.2490; www.borail.org).
When Francis Scott Key saw the American flag flying over Balti-more’s Fort McHenry after a fierce bombardment by British forces in the War of 1812, he wrote a poem to tell the world about it. The words were set to an old British drinking tune, and the Star-Spangled Banner was born. You can tour the battle site (East Fort Ave., 410.962.4290), see Key’s original manuscript at the Maryland Historical Society Museum (201 W. Monument St., 410.685.3750; www.mdhs.org), and visit the Star-Spangled Banner House (844 E. Pratt St., 410.837.1793), the home of Mary Pickersgill, the woman who sewed the flag that inspired a national anthem.
Take a water taxi to the Fells Point neighborhood to retrace the history of 18th- and 19th-century shipbuilding at the Fells Point Maritime Museum. Shipbuilders, sailors, and merchants thrived here thanks to the production of clipper schooners, admired for their style and speed (1724 Thames St., 410.732.0278).
Edgar Allan Poe lived in Baltimore as a young man from 1830 to 1832 and died here within days of returning in 1849. Poe’s status as the father of the mystery novel has been acknowledged by the Mystery Writers of America, who annually present an Oscar-equivalent statuette called an “Edgar” to the year’s best mystery writer. You can visit Poe’s home (203 N. Amity St., 410.396.7932) and his gravesite at West-minster Hall (Fayette and Greene streets).
Opened just this summer, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture focuses on the contributions of well-known figures ranging from Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Thurgood Marshall and Billie Holiday (830 E. Pratt St., 443.263.1800; www.africanamericanculture.org).