Category: Tours

Meet Maryland horses and Mediterranean olives on our upcoming tours

This year marks a full century of Pompeian Olive Oil making olive oil in Baltimore, and we hope you can join us on our May 17 afternoon tour of their Pulaski Highway factory, including a peek at a 300-year-old olive press, the processing plant, and expert cooking tips along the way.

On the morning of May 17, you can join us in getting ready for Preakness with a morning tour of Pimlico Racetrack from its stables (including Preakness horses in training) to the Jockey’s locker room and famed clubhouse with its signature weather vane. And don’t forget about our tour next week of the Maryland House, our state’s contribution to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, with our partner Preservation Maryland.

Spring also means our Monumental City Tours are up and running the first four Sunday mornings of every month from now until Thanksgiving. Bring a friend and join us on these one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mt. Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.

Lastly, our annual Baltimore by Foot tour series starts off this weekend in Seton Hill. We are thrilled with the huge response these tours have generated—we only have spaces left on the Hunting Ridge and Harbor East to Jonestown tours, so make sure to sign up today to save your spot.

Behind the Scenes at City Garage and the Maryland House

Our upcoming tours give you an insider’s look at one of the most talked about projects in Baltimore, let you step into an often overlooked gem at the Maryland Zoo and tell the love stories of Mount Vernon. We are also bringing back our popular Monumental City tours on Sundays from April to November!

On April 14, our Port Covington tour offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the City Garage and a chance to talk with Sagamore Development about their vision for the future of South Baltimore. Originally developed in 1904 around the end line of the B&O Railroad, the Port Covington area is today poised to become Baltimore’s largest urban redevelopment project.

For our Maryland House tour, Tony Azola of the Azola Companies and Lori Finkelstein of the Maryland Zoo will guide you through an architectural gem located just next to the Rogers Mansion. The Maryland House was built for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and then rebuilt on the Zoo grounds. Special thanks to Preservation Maryland for co-hosting this tour! We also will hold our Mount Vernon Love Stories tours (rescheduled from a very cold Valentine’s Day weekend) on April 9 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm.

Finally, our Monumental City tours return starting April. These tours are a great way to explore Baltimore on Sunday mornings. Join us for as we explore Jonestown and the Shot Tower (1st Sunday); Landmarks and Lions Downtown (2nd Sunday); Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument (3rd Sunday); and the Patterson Park Observatory (4th Sunday).

See the Whitehall Mill and a church full of Tiffany on our upcoming heritage tours

Our upcoming Baltimore Heritage tours will show you the bright future of a historic mill, and let you experience a hidden Baltimore treasure. Later this month, we’re stepping into the middle of construction on our tour of Whitehall Mill. This former textile mill is being reborn as a mixed-use complex of apartments, office space, a restaurant, and a market. Please join us and our hosts from Terra Nova Ventures on a walk through the building, showing the progress they’ve made so far and what work is still to come.

On March 19, please join us at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church where you can experience the rare treat of standing in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany. Please join our host, Reverend Dale Dusman, for a tour and a bit of Tiffany overload at this hidden Baltimore gem.

Unfortunately, due to predictions for extreme cold this weekend, we have decided to reschedule our Mount Vernon Love Stories tour from February 13 to April 9 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. We hope to see you on our upcoming tours!

Craftsmanship abounds on our first 2016 Tours

McLain WiesandWe are glad to start the new year, and our winter tour season, by taking you behind the scenes at the workshops of two wonderful local artisans. For our January 27 tour, we’ll visit Thomas Brown Woodwright, a Remington workshop that turns out the highest quality wood products while almost exclusively using machines built before the Great Depression. On February 10, we’re headed to Mount Vernon on a walk through the studio of McLain Wiesand.  From their shop on Cathedral Street, McLain Wiseand create decorative arts pieces and furniture sold in glamorous showrooms from Los Angeles to New York following the tradition of Baltimore’s famed 19th century furniture makers.

Finally, we are back again with Baltimore historian Jamie Hunt for our annual Mt. Vernon Valentines Love Stories tour covering two hundred years of love, loss and betrayal in Baltimore’s high society. We’ll be doing two of these tours on February 13—the first at 11:00 am and the second at 1:00 pm.

We are looking forward to year packed with heritage tours and hope you can join us on our first two.

Tucking in tours with the holidays

This Sunday, November 15, architect David Gleason is leading the final walking tour of Fell’s Point in our series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Robert Long House with the Preservation Society. Mr. Gleason’s tour will focus on the making of modern Fell’s Point, from the fabled “Highway Fight” in the 1960s and 1970s to ongoing efforts to ensure that this waterfront community retains its charm.

We are also pleased to announce two holiday-themed tours in early December. On December 1, we are exploring Mt. Clare, the richly preserved 1760 colonial home of Charles Carroll that will be decked out for the holidays. And on December 9, you can find us at St. Mary’s Seminary, the grand edifice on Northern Parkway that is home to the nation’s oldest Catholic seminary.

Finally, if you haven’t yet been up in the Washington Monument or Patterson Park Observatory, join our Monumental City Sunday morning tours of these great places this month.