Category: Tours

10 Light Street Detail

Doors Open Baltimore bus tour and Baltimore’s beer brewing history by bike

We still have a few seats open on our Doors Open Baltimore Bus Tour this Saturday, October 22 and we’d love to have you come along. From 9:30 am to noon, we’ll visit four fantastic historic buildings with architect and preservation commission chair Tom Liebel. The stops include the cavernous Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, the sculptor’s paradise Schuler Studio, St. Ignatius Church and its glorious architecture, and 10 Light Street, perhaps Baltimore’s grandest Art Deco building.

Of course, these are just a few of the over fifty sites you can see during Doors Open Baltimore this Saturday. Be sure to check out our Explore Baltimore Heritage tour to learn more about the history and architecture of these landmark buildings.

We also wanted to let you know: our 2016 Fall Lecture celebrating 100 years of the National Park Service is rescheduled to from Thursday, November 3 to Wednesday, November 2. The talk by Ms. Joy Beasley, the Park Service’s Deputy Director for Cultural Resources, still starts at 7:00 pm (with a wine and cheese reception following) and is still at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. We hope you can join us to hear how the National Park Service has changed how it manages some of our country’s most precious cultural resources over the last century and what it is planning for the next one.

Finally, if you can ride a bike, we hope you can join us on the morning of Saturday, October 29, 2016 for a pedaling tour of all things beer. From Baltimore’s Barnitz Brewery in 1748 to today’s Union Craft Brewery in Hampden, we’ll get a little exercise and learn about our city’s rich brewing history. The tour will start and end at Union Craft Brewery.

Celebrating the National Park Service Centennial at our Fall Lecture

America’s national parks have been called the best idea our country has ever had. The National Park System includes hundreds of parks and millions of acres—everything from small urban parks to great expanses of wilderness. This year their chief steward, the National Park Service, turns 100 years old. Please join us for a discussion of how the Park Service grew from a small office in 1916 into today’s force for preserving natural and cultural heritage. Our speaker, Ms. Joy Beasley, is the National Park Service’s Deputy Associate Director for Cultural Resources, Partnerships, and Science, the agency’s designated Federal Preservation Officer, and luckily for us is also a Baltimorean.

The talk is on Wednesday, November 2 at 7:00 pm with a wine and cheese reception following. Our host is the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, a historic treasure of its own.

Doors Open Bus Tour on October 22

Doors Open Baltimore

We enjoy getting a chance to peek inside dozens of great buildings during the annual Doors Open Baltimore event so much that this year we’re teaming up with event sponsors the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and AIA Baltimore to host a guided bus tour to explore five of the featured places in depth. Join preservation architect Tom Liebel, who also chairs the city’s historic preservation commission, as we hop from site to site on a journey down Charles Street and learn what makes these places fantastic.

Free parking is available at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. The member rate for this tour is available for members of Baltimore Heritage, Baltimore Architecture Foundation, and AIA Baltimore.

Don’t forget that you can learn more about Doors Open Baltimore sites with our Explore Baltimore Heritage tour. You can also download the recently updated Explore Baltimore Heritage app for iOS or Android.

Portrait of Babe Ruth standing with a bat

Discover the history of bakeries, Babe Ruth, beer, and more

As we head into the fall, we hope you can join us on some of the bike tours, bus tours and walking tours that we’ve line up to explore Baltimore from Edgar Allan Poe to Babe Ruth, from German sticky buns to Baltimore beer, with loads of new and historic inventors and artisans in between.

Our bike tours start on September 17 with our ride-and-sample East Baltimore Bakeries by Bike Tour. It is perhaps the only bike tour where you must be careful to watch your calories. On October 29, we are pedaling again on our “3 B’s Tour”: Baltimore, Bikes, and Beer. We’ll learn about malt and hops from the Barnitz Brewery (Baltimore’s first in 1748) to Union Craft Brewery (a relative new-comer) where we’ll end, of course, with a beer.

If you prefer four wheels over two, our Babe Ruth in Baltimore Bus Tour on September 24 offers two hours of insight into one of Baseball’s greatest stars, from the hardscrabble streets of Baltimore’s longshoreman district, through the formative years of his life and development as professional baseball player. As a treat, we’ll get a peek inside the former Cardinal Gibbons High School to see the mural honoring Ruth at the place where he got his start in the National Pastime.

And if plain old walking shoes are your go-to mode of transportation, join us on October 8 for Poe and Beyond at Westminster Hall to learn about Poe’s death and to tour the church, graveyard and more than a little eerie catacombs. The following day on October 9, we are exploring 150 years of Industry and Artistry in Station North and Open Works on a walking tour of Station North and a look inside Open Works, a just opened maker-space for Baltimore’s newest artisans working in metal, wood, fabric and more. Come on our morning tour and then head back out into Station North to visit dozens of artists who will have their studios open as part of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts 28th Annual Open Studio Tour.

Summer in Baltimore? It’s hot and we’re lining up heritage tours!

Join us next week for some wine, cheese, and a tour through the Housewerks Architectural Salvage showroom. Housewerks occupies a former valve house with a long history tracing back to 1885 when it was built for an immense gas production facility on the site. Another building, still standing on the site, manufactured Oriole Stoves, the anchor of many Baltimore kitchens. The valve house retains much of its architectural glory and industrial past, making it a perfect setting for a showroom of salvaged items from historic Baltimore.

While the beaches beckon on these hot summer weekends, we are offering our Sunday Monumental City tours for anyone staying in the city. Each tour gives you the chance to look up from the city pavement and see Baltimore’s landmarks from a new perspective.

Summer may be in full swing, but we are already lining up tours for the fall. Mark your calendars for two Baltimore bike tours sure to satisfy your taste buds. On September 17, we will bring back our Baltimore Bakeries by Bike tour and on October 15, we will introduce our new Baltimore Beer by Bike tour. In addition, you can get yourself in the Halloween mood on October 8, with a tour of Westminster Hall and Burial Grounds, the burial site of Edgar Allan Poe and many other Baltimore notables.

Not just a visit! Two chances to see and buy a piece of Baltimore history

Join us this Sunday for Baltimore Meets Florence: Italian Architecture & Desserts by Bike. It’s the next best thing to a trip to an actual trip to Florence. The tour transports you to the Piazza della Signoria, the Ponte Vecchio, the Tempio Maggiore, the Ospedalia deli Innocenti, and the Carrara quarries. Plus, find out why Baltimore is way more important than Florence in the history of frozen desserts. Sorry, but this hypnotic experience only lasts a few hours.

Next week, join the Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage for a tour of a historic 1856 Victorian home designed by architect Thomas Dixon, founding member of the American Institute of Architects, Baltimore Chapter. In 2004, the home’s owner carefully restored the building and won awards for their efforts from the Maryland Historic Trust, the Mount Washington Improvement Association, and Baltimore Heritage. This Mount Washington landmark is currently up for sale.

Next month, join us and Housewerks owner Ben Riddleberger, for a tour of their showroom and a little wine and cheese. Opened in 1885 as the headquarters of the Chesapeake Gas Works Company, 1415 Bayard Street originally served as the valve house for an immense gas production facility. Housewerks Architectural Salvage now occupies the building as a showroom for salvaged items from historic Baltimore.

Finally, don’t forget that this Sunday, and almost every Sunday until Thanksgiving, our volunteer-led Monumental City Tours will take you on one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.