Baltimore Inner Harbor

We wanted to get away for a few days, so this past weekend we decided to spend two nights in Baltimore, Maryland.  We always enjoyed taking day-trips with the kids to the Inner Harbor, but haven’t been there for a number of years, so this was a good opportunity to get back, enjoy the harbor, and take some pictures.

The main selling point for the Inner Harbor is that there is plenty to do for every member of the family.  If you’re into shopping you can browse the shops at Harborplace right on the water, or take in the Gallery Mall just across the street.  When it’s time to eat, there are no shortage of dining spots.  The main cuisine of the area is seafood at restaurants like Phillips, McCormick & Schmick’s, and the Rusty Scupper, but you can find any type of food at any price level within walking distance, since every restaurant chain is represented.

Harborplace

Gallery Mall

Phillips Seafood (Express)

There are also many activities to keep the whole family occupied.  The main attraction of the Inner Harbor is the National Aquarium.  We spent most of the day on Saturday exploring the many exhibits – I’ll concentrate on the aquarium in my next blog entry.

National Aquarium

In addition to the aquarium, there are many other things to do:  visit the Maryland Science Center; tour the Civil War era USS Constellation tall ship as well as other ships and a submarine; plus tour the harbor area on various types of vessels and dining cruises.  If you’re into baseball and football, the Orioles and Ravens stadiums are just a couple of blocks from the Inner Harbor.

USS Constellation

Seadog Harbor Cruiser

Since our anniversary was last weekend, we wanted to stay at a nice hotel, so we stayed at the Intercontinental, directly across the street from the harbor.  The hotel was very elegant, the rooms large, and the breakfasts were very well prepared.  On Saturday night we dined at McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood restaurant.  The seafood was outstanding.

Intercontinental Hotel

McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant

Rockport, Massachusetts

On our recent trip to New England, we drove from Plymouth, Massachusetts to Portland, Maine. On the way north, we decided to take a side trip to the scenic fishing village of Rockport, Massachusetts. This wasn’t our first visit to Rockport. Back in 1999, on a family road trip to Boston the see the Philadelphia Flyers play the Boston Bruins, we took a drive north of the city through Salem and Rockport, which shares the Cape Ann peninsula with the town of Gloucester.

Historically, the area that is now Rockport was simply an uninhabited part of Gloucester for more than 100 years, and was primarily used as a source of timber -- especially pine for shipbuilding. The area around Cape Ann was also one of the best fishing grounds in New England. In 1743 a dock was built at Rockport harbor on Sandy Bay and was used for both timber and fishing. By the beginning of the 19th century, the first granite quarries were developed, and by the 1830s, Rockport granite was being shipped to cities and towns throughout the East Coast of the United States. Although the demand for granite decreased with the increasing use of concrete in construction during the Great Depression, Rockport still thrived as an artist colony -- which began years earlier due to its rocky, boulder-strewn ocean beaches, its quaint fishing shacks, a harbor filled with small, colorful fishing boats, and the fact that Cape Ann was made famous by Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous.

The most famous sight in Rockport, of course, is the red fishing shack sitting out on Bradley Wharf in the middle of the harbor. The fishing shack is well-known to students of art and art history as "the most often-painted building in America." Oddly enough, the shack actually has a name – Motif Number 1. Built in the 1840s as Rockport became home to a colony of artists and fishermen, the shack became a favorite subject of painters due to the composition and lighting of its location as well as being a symbol of New England maritime life. Painter Lester Hornby is believed to be the first to call the shack "Motif Number 1," a reference to its being the favorite subject of the town's painters, and the name achieved general acceptance. Battered and broken by the great winter storm of 1978, the original Motif Number 1 collapsed and was swept out of Rockport harbor. Within the year, a duplicate had been built and repainted to look as good as new. The Bearskin Neck area along the harbor, with its narrow streets and many quaint restaurants, art galleries, and shops, is also a favorite tourist area.

NEXT POST: Plymouth, Massachusetts

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Portland, Maine

We took a trip up to New England last week. Although the weather wasn’t that great, I’ll use my next few blog posts to show some of the photos of that trip.

We spent three nights of the trip at the Marriott at Sable Oaks in South Portland, Maine. The last time I visited Portland I was a teenager in the summer of 1964. I took the bus from Philadelphia to Portland to visit friends of the family. The main memory of that trip for me was taking the ferry out to the islands in Casco Bay and exploring old abandoned military fortifications.

This time we didn’t do any exploring through abandoned forts, but we did do some exploring around the streets of Portland. The main part of town is divided into three districts: the Old Port; the Arts District; and the East End. We spent a little time in the Arts District with its many galleries, but we spent most of our time walking around the Old Port area which extends up the hill from the busy port of Portland.

The Old Port is filled with shops, restaurants, and cafes, and has something of a 19^th century European feel to it thanks to its many narrow cobblestone streets and old brick buildings. Commercial Street runs along the harbor at the foot of Old Port which has docks for the Casco Bay ferry to the islands and The Cat high speed ferry to Nova Scotia, as well as countless yachts and fishing boats.

A stay in Portland wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the LL Bean flagship store located in Freeport, Maine, a short 15 minute drive north of Portland. Besides the LL Bean Flagship Retail Store, which is huge, there is also an LL Bean Hunting & Fishing Store, an LL Bean Bike, Boat & Ski Store, an LL Bean Home Store, and an LL Bean Outlet Store, all within two blocks. The town of Freeport obviously exists because of LL Bean, but there are also many other shops and restaurants to explore along Main Street, plus a small outlet mall. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant just off Main Street called the Corsican Restaurant. I had a bowl of clam chowder that was the best I’ve ever tasted.

The highlight of a trip to Portland for any photographer has to be the Portland Head Light Station on Cape Elizabeth, south of the city. The lighthouse is one of the most photographed in the country and will be the subject of my next post.

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