Baltimore

Baltimore is kinda conflicted. On one hand, it has a few interesting historical sites & tourist spots, but on the other hand, they are struggling to attract people back to stay in Baltimore. Hence, when I was there, the place looked fairly empty, even though I visited it over a Sunday & Monday.

I concentrated my sightseeing in two areas. The first place is the Harbourplace which is their attempt to inject more excitement into the area. There is a pretty interesting National Aquarium of Baltimore but definitely not the best I have seen. So far, I think those in Japan are still better. In the first pic on the left, the aquarium is the collection of two buildings on the right with sloping roofs. They had a pretty good frog exhibit going on. Here's one of my favourites. Looks like an alien, eh!

On the far end of the harbourplace, there was an interesting quirky museum on pop culture. This guy had a huge collection of old comics and toys and decided to put them up for display. Quite cool. I think there was an original copy of Action Comics where Superman first appeared, though not in mint condition. But I wished he had more things to display from current era. Most of his stuff were concentrated before the 1970s.







On my second day, I spent more time in the cultural district. The pics show two 'firsts' in baltimore. The first monument to George Washington as well as the first cathedral in America. The cathedral had just undergone a renovation and it's been cleaned up real nicely. But I guess, after visiting Rome, no other cathedrals can probably match up. Oh yah, I went for a free tour but left halfway. The guide was soooooo longwinded. It was supposed to be a 45min tour but after 30mins, we were still near the entrance! Sianz.

In my two days in Baltimore, I was quite lucky that the weather, though overcast, was not really bad. It didn't pour so I could walk around. You can see how grey the skies were in the first pic.