Travel

It wasn’t all that long ago that Baltimore was thought of as an industrial spot that people drove through or around on their way to more glamorous cities, such as New York and Washington.

But in the 1970s and 1980s, Baltimore—also known as Charm City—got a face-life: Our once-ratty Inner Harbor was spruced up with restaurants and shopping, as well as a science museum, a fabulous aquarium and several other attractions. The harbor is, without a doubt, Baltimore’s main attraction. But, thankfully, the city also has retained many of its oddball quirks (this is, after all, the hometown of Frank Zappa and John Waters). For starters, we’ve got a tattoo museum, a museum of dentistry and municipal food markets. Baltimore is home to duckpin bowling and beehive hairdos, which in some quarters are still considered the height of hair sophistication. We’ve got painted screens, Edgar Allan Poe’s grave … and much more.

It’s just a matter of breaking away from the beaten path to discover the joyous peculiarities that make this city great.

Most anyone visiting London—from Paloma Picasso and Madonna to curators from American museums and the idly curious—comes to Portobello Road.

Althought the street has been well known as an open-air fruit and flower market for the past 130 or so years, it has only been over the course of the past five decades that the area has garnered a reputation as an antique lover's haven. Probably more serious antique business is conducted here than anywhere else in London.

Nevertheless, even today, the fruit and vegetable and flower vendors remain, although they have set up shop further downhill from the antique dealers, and beyond the greengrocers comes the last of Portobello's offerings—its junk market where, for a song, one can literally pick up someone’s old kitchen sink.

Thirty or so years ago, it was the exotic island of pink sand and beautiful beaches, a destination especially popular for honeymooning. These days one hears considerably less about Bermuda, which is a pity: the beaches are still pristine, golf courses abound, shopping remains wonderful and banking executives still head to the office clad in shirt, necktie and short pants.

Juan de Bermudez discovered these uninhabited islands in 1503, but neither he nor the Spanish explorers who were to follow him saw fit to claim the island for their king and queen. The Brits, however, arrived shortly thereafter: In 1609, the Sea Venture, an English ship traveling to assist the beleagured Jamestown, Va., colonists, crashed offshore. The English had a distinctly different take on the place than their Spanish counterparts. While rebuilding the Sea Venture, George Somers claimed Bermuda—or Somers Isle as it was called then—for England and a charter was granted a few years later.

Along the River Seine in the heart of Paris lies the entrance to one of the world's most unusual museums. Here, literally in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, one puts aside views of one of the world’s most beautiful cities and descends to a kind of parallel universe: that of the sewers.

Below is a world unto itself, one that, in its own way, is about art and culture. Victor Hugo wrote: “Paris has beneath it another Paris, a Paris of sewers, which has its own streets, squares, lanes, arteries and circulation.” Indeed, Hugo found the sewers so fascinating that he gave us the indelible image of his hero, Jean Valjean, fleeing his pursuers through them: “All dripping with slime, his soul filled with a strange light.” And at Le Musee des Egouts de Paris (the Museum of the Sewers of Paris), visitors can find out firsthand what Hugo found so fascinating.

This is a serious museum about a serious subject, and its guides hold visitors enthralled with the surprisingly complex history of the Paris sewers. Much of the tour is conducted in portions of Baron Haussmann’s original galleries close to the Seine. Exhibits, original equipment on display, films and tours in both French and English only begin to convey the fact that it is a dirty job but someone has to do it.

A detail little-known to most Free State residents is that Charlestown, tucked away in Cecil County on the banks of the North East River, was once a contender vying to be named capital of the United States. Dating back to 1742, when it was incorporated, Charlestown was originaly a shipping center, sending significant quantities of flour to England. The town also was famous for distilling Jamaican molasses into rum, much of which was then exported.

More recently, Charlestown was a popular place for political heavy-hitters—including Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge—because of its many opportunities for hunting and fishing. According to residents, 100-pound sturgeon were once routinely hauled out of the North East's waters. In addition, there were canvasback ducks, shellfish, geese and shad in abundance.

The allure today is that Charlestown is quiet, quaint and placid: In other words, a perfect place to escape the hubbub of bigger cities and suburbs.