I visited Baltimore on a stinking hot weekend in June 2018, and hugged the shade as much as I could as I explored the city. You feel that Baltimore could have been a dense, urban, livable city but for the blight, engendered by racism, that has so scarred it's core. Whatever its issues, there is a lot of beauty to be found in this old city, its parks and galleries, and I fully enjoyed my time there.
Photo List (Total 374 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Central Baltimore (88 photos) - Downtown Baltimore is a collection of old and lovely historical buildings, with the occasional modern skyscraper thrown in. It's not a huge downtown, and it's fairly easy to wander a little bit east or west and find yourself in areas that are not as prosperous, but it's a pleasant enough romp anyways.
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Inner Harbor (67 photos) - Baltimore's Inner Harbor is the city's showcase for tourists, buildings and entertainment wrapped around three sides of a square Patapsco River. It offers some very nice views of the city, but is intensely given over to chain activities available anywhere that it is hard to love. These photos start at the slip of water furthest to the east, wrap around the harbour, including some views from the World Trade Center, include a jaunt up Federal Hill Park, and end at the American Visionary Art Museum. This latter I had understood to be a showcase for outsider art, but in fact I found it to be full of woo, definitely visually appealing though.
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Ruined Baltimore (31 photos) - The focus of these photos is mostly abandoned housing, of which Baltimore has quite a bit. The city is full of rowhousing, often three storeys high, hugging the sidewalks. Had the city propered more than it has, you could see this housing stock being quite attractive and allowing for a dense urban core (and a few of the photos here show how that might look). But the central city is replete with buildings that have been left to their own devices and a rich legacy of urban development decays year on year.
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Mt. Vernon (49 photos) - If you follow Charles Street north from the downtown, you will arrive at Mount Vernon, and the area around the Washington Monument is one of the prettiest urban assemblages I have seen anywhere. This cross shaped park with it's plinth in the middle, surrounded by museums, churches and sturdy buildings, makes you want to linger and explore. This gallery starts there, and includes visits to the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Basilica, the Enoch Pratt Free Library (unfortunately under construction) and neighbourhood streets.
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Midtown (48 photos) - Further north on Charles Street is a sort of poorly-defined neighbourhood, Midtown. This is where I had supper. These photos follow Charles Street north towards the famous Belvedere Hotel, and then further north to Pennsylvania Station, and then to the rougher area along North Avenue, where my hotel was located, and a few photos from Charles Village further north. It includes the symphony hall, and some buildings from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
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Baltimore Museum of Art and Johns Hopkins (42 photos) - This gallery is mainly the Baltimore Museum of Art, as I continued up Charles, and also has a few photos of Johns Hopkins University.
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Druid Hill Park (49 photos) - This park sits north-west of the core and holds the Baltimore Zoo. I didn't visit the zoo, the main attraction for me was the Rawlings Conservatory, but I spent time strolling in other areas of the park as well. I walked in some areas that were completely overgrown with an invasive vine, killing the trees, and this area of the park had an eerie wild feel to it.
