Annapolis - Sailing Capital of the USA

What a great town! We spent a second day in Annapolis and I have to say I believe this city has a truly great "Old Town" area. It is easy to get around and not so large that it overwhelms. We went to the Hard Bean Cafe for coffee and to read the paper and then went to the Naval Academy Museum (this took most of the morning). It was a very well organized museum and you would have to spend a week there to absorb all it has to offer.

There are taverns and "bar and grills" though out the old section so we picked the Middleton Tavern for lunch. Everywhere you look there was restaurants and taverns from the 1700's. The food was great so we had to walk some of it off. Neil got some posters at the Naval Academy so we walked up to the post office and he mailed them to himself rather that trying to carry them home on the plane next Thursday.

We found the bronze Alex Haley statues so had to take a few photos. His ancestors came through the Port of Annapolis so this is where he did most of his research for his book "Roots".

Besides the United States Naval Academy Annapolis is the home of St. Johns College which is a small (450 students) liberal arts college. They have a rather unique curricula in that it is composed of 40 books. They require their students to read and then discuss and write about each of the 40 classic type books. It takes 4 years but when they are finished they get their BA. They have the highest percentage of graduates that go on to get a PHD of any college.

There was so much to see and so little time we took a Trolley Tour which gave us a good understanding of the history of Annapolis. The driver was very good and also had a good sense of humor. The Trolley Tours is part of the Historic Annapolis Museum which we also toured.

We are in the Annapolis City Marina which is right in the heart of downtown Annapolis so we can walk to most things although we did take the water taxi ($2) back to the marina just for fun.