Baltimore

After our visit to Hershey’s chocolate world on 2^nd day of our long weekend we planned for Baltimore.

Baltimore is the largest city of Maryland State of US. Its harbor and inner harbor is main attraction for tourist. We reached to Baltimore around 1 PM and then we headed to National aquarium but the earliest slot we manage to get the tickets is of 5:00 PM. All earlier slots were full.

We were still having 3 and half hour in our hand to spend. First we decided to satisfy our stomach. We went to Chipotle (Mexican cuisine restaurant) and had our lunch. After that we just decided to take walk on harbor.

Harbor was crowded as most of the attractions are located nearby. Cruise ride, Pedal boats, Ripley’s believe it or not, Dinning, malls everything is there.

If you want to cover main attractions of Baltimore then you can take Baltimore Heritage walk which is heritage trail that links 20 historic sites and museums. This is round walk so you can start it from National aquarium and end it again there. When you are walking on this trail you will notice that ‘Heritage walk’ is printed on ground in number of languages. It also includes Hindi language which says ‘Virasat ki Padyatra’. We did not take the entire walk but covered the U.S.S Constellation Museum where you can visit historic ships, World Trade Center which is the tallest regular pentagonal building in the world. It has observation deck on 27^th floor, called as “Top of the World”, provides 360 degree view of city. These are the two attractions located in Inner Harbor then Heritage trail will lead you in the city for other sites but we skipped that.

We then visited the visitor information center of Baltimore and thought of taking rest. We could see lots of Indians wearing proper traditional dresses like Dhoti-Kurta, Ladies wearing rich sarees. We thought of some function must be there and then we saw the Rath Yatra of ISKON group in the busy street of Baltimore. Rathyatra was led by US and Indian flag. People were following those flags and enchanting ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’.

Inner Harbor also has small amphi theater where one small girl was entertaining people with her gymnastic skills. From Inner harbor, you will also see Federal Hill Park, which gives a fabulas panoramic view of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. You have to climb a bit for that but it’s worth of taking efforts.

It was almost 5 PM and it’s time to head towards aquarium. Aquarium has number of exhibits which will take your more than 2 hrs. I liked the most in aquarium is Shark Alley which were showcasing number of Shark’s species, Jellies Invasion and Dolphin Discovery. All can see the dolphins any time, for as long as they like, and enjoy interactions with the dolphin team, including dolphin training, feeding times, enrichment, and play activities.

Its good place to spend your day and I believe if we would have taken Heritage walk we might have explored about city lot. After our aquarium visit we headed towards Ocean City.