I was lucky to be staying in a hotel just a few blocks away from Baltimore's Inner Harbor. We were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn, which has one of the nicest gyms I've ever seen and is smart enough to have a separate pool for small children, so it's actually pleasant to swim there for adults. Plus it had free wi-fi, which should be a requirement for all hotels but unfortunately is not. The Inner Harbor is a really nice area, not nearly as dangerous as people keep telling me the rest of Baltimore is. We were there on a beautiful weekend, and so we spent a lot of time just walking around the harbor, people watching and seeing the sites. There's a cute little red lighthouse that you can go up into, and many ships from different eras and even a submarine to check out. The harbor was bustling with people, including street performers in a little square that gathered quite the audience. It was a really pleasant little area, though I was disappointed that most of the restaurants seemed to be big chain restaurants - I wanted to eat on the water but I didn't want to eat somewhere that I could eat in NY.
My favorite Inner Harbor experience was paddle boating. I always find paddle boating on a sunny day to be quite relaxing, and it was interesting to see the harbor from the water in a teeny tiny paddle boat. You can go in a regular paddle boat for $11/half hour (half an hour is typically plenty of paddle boating) or you can go in a brightly-colored "Chessie" (pictured above - the Chesapeake Bay's version of Nessie, the Lock Ness monster) for $17/half hour. We chose the regular paddle boat because the wait was longer for a Chessie, but the Chessies seemed bigger, so they're probably more family friendly for those of you with kids. Plus they're just a lot of fun. Definitely a great activity when the weather is nice.
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