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BALTIMORE
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Hotels in Baltimore
• Fairfield Inn Baltimore North Baltimore from $109.00 USD
• Renaissance Harborplace Hotel Baltimore from $137.00 USD
• Wyndham Inner Harbor Baltimore from $156.00 USD
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I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you'll never discover a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay .
- John Waters, Shock Value
BALTIMORE is among the more enjoyable stops on the east coast, and its closely knit neighborhoods and historic quarters provide an engaging backdrop to many diverse attractions, especially those along its celebrated waterfront , like the Inner Harbor's National Aquarium and the Pier 6 Concert Pavilion and Power Plant entertainment complex. The city also boasts top-rated museums , like the Walters Art Museum and the child-oriented, interactive Port Discovery, which cover everything from fine arts through black history to urban archeology. That Baltimore has been home to such diverse figures as writers Edgar Allan Poe and Anne Tyler and civil rights activists Frederick Douglass and Thurgood Marshall goes some way towards explaining its sometimes bizarrely varied character, but it's still hard to pin down exactly what makes it such an engaging city to visit, and to live in.
The spacious, modern Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI), ten miles south of the city center and twenty-five miles northeast of DC, is one of the busier east coast hubs. The cheapest and best way to get into the city is on the MTA light-rail system, which leaves every seventeen minutes and takes around twenty-five. Airport Shuttle vans ($11; tel 410/821-5387 or 1-800/BLUE-VAN) into Baltimore leave the terminal every twenty minutes, taking half an hour to reach downtown. Taxis cost around $20. MARC commuter trains (tel 410/539-5000 or 1-800/325-RAIL; hourly; $3.25 one-way, $6 round-trip), operating weekdays from DC, stop at BWI airport before continuing on to the restored Pennsylvania Station (commonly known as Penn Station), half a mile north of downtown at 1525 N Charles St, which is also the arrival point of Amtrak trains (tel 1-800/USA-RAIL) from all destinations. All Greyhound buses stop on the west side of downtown at 210 W Fayette St, but be careful in this area at night since it borders on the rougher part of the city.
Pick up free maps and the seasonal Quick Guide at the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association , on the West Wall of the Inner Harbor (tel 410/837-4636 or 1-888/BALTIMORE, ), or from its booths at the airport and train station.
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