Hi, friends! Today I’m so excited to share with you photos from a trip my mom and I took to Annapolis, Maryland. For those that don’t know, I’m working in the Columbia, Maryland area this summer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. It’s just about half way between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and Annapolis is a quick 35 minute drive toward the coast line. My mom was already here in Maryland helping me to get settled in, so we decided to go exploring in Annapolis on the first Sunday I was in town.
Annapolis is the state capitol of Maryland, and as such I was expecting to find a big city with lots of cars and traffic and high-rise government buildings. But what I found instead was a quaint little colonial town with lots of eccentric shops, restaurants, and a spectacular ocean view. The U.S. Naval Academy is also in Annapolis and we just so happened to visit on graduation weekend when all the cadets were in bright white linens showing their families around the town. It was such a busy and exciting time to be there and a perfect introduction to my time here on the East Coast!
A map of the downtown area is given below. As you can see there is a lot of different areas in Annapolis to explore and it is surrounded by water on three sides. We mostly stayed around Main Street, but also explored Church Circle and State Circle and the other surrounding areas a bit. We even drove over into Eastport (lower right of map across the Annapolis Harbor), but there wasn’t much to do there that we could see. If you follow Main Street all the way down to the water, you can catch a boat tour from Spa Creek or grab a bite to eat there at Market Space.
If you’ve been following my travels for very long, you know that my method of exploring new places is pretty laid back and I like to explore by foot first, allowing my feet to find all the interesting nooks and crannies that cars just seem to miss. And that is just what we did! Parking can be a bit of an issue since the downtown area is pretty small, but we lucked into a spot front and center!
For anyone thinking about visiting in the future, many shops offer validation in the parking garages. And you can park in the Calvert Street Garage for FREE on nights and weekends. A full map of parking options can be found HERE, if you are interested!
One of my favorite parts of towns here on the East Coast is the older homes. The architecture with wide shutters around each windows and contrasting crown moldings outlining the doors are always so much fun to take in. And nearly every street was adorned with the prettiest blooming roses. You can see the pretty pink ones peaking through the white picket fence below. Also, I can’t tell if it was just because we were so close to July 4th, but there seemed to be an American flag flying outside every other doorway and I loved it! It felt so very American summer.
The first shop we stopped in was The Annapolis Pottery where they’ve been making pottery since the late 1960s. Not only do they make the pieces right there in store (there is a workshop and kiln in back that you can walk through), but they also feature other local artists’ work in the area. Needless to say, they have beautiful pieces and I left with one of the gorgeous handmade sailboat mugs below as a keepsake for the summer.
Also, just a word about the people who work at The Annapolis Pottery.. they are so INCREDIBLY nice! Not only did they help us around the store and allow us to look in their pottery workshop, but they gave us a map of the downtown area and provided us with personal recommendations on things to do (and routes to walk) while we were there! So nice!
After purchasing our goodies at the pottery shop, we headed on our way to explore more around town. The next shop we went into was Old Fox Books. I loved the inside of the musty book store, where there’s a new surprise on every shelf. I was jokingly telling Allen that the necklace around Teddy’s neck (in the photo a couple down) was a horcrux from Harry Potter and that it needed to be destroyed immediately. Haha!
There is also a small coffee shop (Brown Mustache Coffee) in the back of the book shop and a gorgeous outdoor seating area that is reminiscent of a magical fairy tale garden. I could’ve sat out there all day with an iced coffee and a good book.
After walking around some more, we decided to stop for lunch at The Middleton Tavern. We each got a cesar salad with grilled shrimp on top, and it was the perfect refreshing (read: not too heavy) dish to get in the middle of the afternoon heat.
The restaurant was near the docks, so we took the opportunity to walk along the water and ended up getting on a 40-minute harbor tour to explore the Naval Academy and coastline of Annapolis by boat. And it was on the boat tour that we found out that Annapolis is known as the Sailing Capitol of the World, which makes sense considering the vast views of sailboats all around the harbor. It was absolutely gorgeous!
After our boat tour, ice cream in the heat was a necessity. So we stopped into Kilwins for a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream in a crisp vanilla waffle cone. They make their fudges and chocolates on site, and it was so fun to sit outside while eating our ice cream and watch them making confections inside.
After walking around the rest of the shops on Main Street, we headed up a side street (and then along King George Street) towards the U.S. Naval Academy. We didn’t go inside the gate and walk around, but I’m pretty sure during normal hours they allow visitors to tour the grounds. You can see all the different ways to learn about the Naval Academy HERE.
And then we continued our walk through the more residential area of Annapolis. Like I mentioned above, walking around in the neighborhoods of an area is my absolute favorite thing to do in a new city!
We walked back along a different street (College Ave) that ran up right against St. John’s College. I particularly loved this beautiful tree-adorned walkway (and the shaded areas were pretty nice too! :P) After we made it back to the Market Space where we parked, we headed back to Columbia for the night. If you are in the area, I would highly visit a day trip to Annapolis! It was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday!
In fact, I loved visiting Annapolis so much that I took the opportunity to take Allen there on our way to Philadelphia the second weekend I was on the East Coast. So I’ve included a few more pictures from my second visit to Annapolis below!
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A Quick Stop in Annapolis with Allen
First things first for a quick stop in Annapolis…lunch! Allen and I stopped into The Federal House Bar & Grill for a delicious seafood lunch near the docks. It can be pretty HOT and HUMID in Maryland in the summertime, especially so close to the water, but that didn’t stop us from eating outside on the patio.
Allen got the crab cake sandwich (Maryland is known for their amazing crab!) and I got the bam-bam shrimp sandwich. Yum!!
After lunch Allen and I headed over to State Circle to see the Maryland State House. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the state house is actually a national historic landmark as it is the oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use today (dating all the way back to 1772!!). Pretty cool, right?! Since Allen’s mom used to work making special places into national historic landmarks, we made sure to snap a few quick pictures of Allen there for her!
We walked down many of the same streets as my mom and I had done the weekend prior, but we also found a beautiful memorial to Thurgood Marshall near the State House, which was particularly moving after seeing the most recent movie about him and his work for the civil rights movement.
After exploring Main Street, the docks, and the surrounding streets, we finished our quick 1/2 day trip to Annapolis with another stop at Kilwins for ice cream cones outside! It was the perfect little pit stop on our way to Philadelphia!
What about you? Have you ever visited Annapolis?! If so, what are your favorite spots there?
You might also like…Colonial Williamsburg and Virginia Beach Boardwalk.
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