How to spend a day in Fells Point, Baltimore’s seafood-loving, historic neighbourhood

From an innovative shipbuilding port of the past to a ’burb of iconic seafood joints and live music haunts of the present, this sprightly Baltimore neighbourhood oozes brilliance beyond its street cobbles.

Fells Point was established in 1726 by Lancashire-born shipbuilder William Fell, and actually predates the city itself. On the surface little may have changed – the USA’s oldest operating saloon is here, where writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe last drank just before his mysterious death – but dig a little deeper and you’ll find boundary-pushing boutique shops, a re-imagined 18th-century food market, and possibly Maryland’s most rockin’ breakfast to boot.

Here’s how to make a day of it in this distinctive neighbourhood in Maryland’s biggest city, from listening to live music and discovering more of Fells Point’s maritime history, to snagging the best seafood in town, sipping a beer in a pre-prohibition saloon, and bedding down in style at a ship-inspired five-star.

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Arrive in style

Fells Point, with its industrial harbourside suburb, was tactically established to serve its former shipbuilders; today it’s suitably placed as a port of call for the famous Baltimore Water Taxi. While Fells Point is the star here, it’s just one of around 30 waterside neighbourhoods and attractions on the Water Taxi map – day tickets for the US’s oldest water transport service of its kind cost $20.

Catch some live music

Baltimore’s music scene is a hot mix of its cultures. Fells Point has always attracted creatives, and has a healthy blues and jazz scene – 1940s swing singer Billie Holiday lived here, and performed here for the first time too. Holiday’s beloved blues lives on over at Bertha’s and the Cat’s Eye Pub, while jazz still pops at Keystone Korner.

Learn about Baltimore’s maritime industry

The Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum celebrates the contributions African Americans made in the establishment and development of Baltimore as a leading maritime city. Fells Point was the first working deepwater dock in or around the city; both enslaved and free men worked as joiners, caulkers and sailmakers. The museum traces the lives of Douglass and Myers, two enslaved men turned social reformers and unionists respectively.