1 Best Sight in Baltimore, Maryland

Visiting Baltimore without seeing the Inner Harbor is like touring New York City and skipping Manhattan. The harbor and surrounding area are home to a good number of the city's most popular sites: the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Camden Yards, M&T Bank Stadium, the American Visionary Arts Museum, and The Maryland Science Center.

The neighborhoods themselves are fun to explore. Historic Federal Hill, just south of the Inner Harbor, is home to some of the oldest houses in the city. Fells Point and Canton, farther east, are lively waterfront communities. Mount Vernon and Charles Village have wide avenues lined with grand old row houses that were once home to Baltimore's wealthiest residents. Farther north are Roland Park (Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. contributed to its planning), Guilford, Homeland, and Mt. Washington, all leafy, residential neighborhoods with cottages, large Victorian houses, and redbrick Colonials. It's easy to tour the Inner Harbor and neighborhoods such as Mount Vernon, Federal Hill, Charles Village, and Fells Point on foot. To travel between areas or farther out, however, the light rail or a car is more efficient. Most of the Inner Harbor's parking is in nearby garages, though meters can be found along Key Highway. In other neighborhoods, you can generally find meters and two-hour free parking on the street.

Maryland Center for History and Culture

Mount Vernon

Celebrate Maryland's history and heritage at this block-long museum. One major draw is the original manuscript of "The Star-Spangled Banner," written by Francis Scott Key. It's the centerpiece of an excellent War of 1812 exhibit that also includes guns and personal belongings of Baltimore's "Defenders," as well as the fashions of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, known by contemporaries as "the most beautiful woman in 1812 America." The first floor is devoted to an exhibit about the Civil War in Maryland, which was a powder keg of Northern and Southern sympathies—the War's first blood was shed downtown, on Pratt Street. Other exhibits feature Revolutionary-era paintings by the Peale family and Joshua Johnson, America's first African-American portrait artist. Furniture manufactured and designed in Maryland from the 18th century to the present is on the third floor. A gallery of Baltimore Civil Rights photographs by Afro-American newspaper photojournalist Paul Henderson adjoins the library, which contains 7 million works that relate to the state's history.