Have you heard the story about a riot that broke out when a ferry tried to dump 150 passengers off a Baltimore-to-St. Michaels trip on the Annapolis docks?
What about the tale of a working girl who haunts Rams Head Tavern?
Whether you’re new to the area or you’ve lived here for years, walking tours offer what might be unfamiliar stories for those with a hankering for a general take on Colonial life or a more specific interest, like hauntings or seafood.
There are a few outfits providing guided tours, most with Colonial-garbed guides, around the historic spots, landmarks and stately homes of the founding fathers including Maryland’s four signers of the Declaration of Independence. Others will take you to the city’s haunted spots or guide you through the local food scene.
As tour season gears up, here’s a sample of what’s available.
Annapolis Tours by Watermark offers several walking tours of the historic city, but the most popular in the Four Centuries Walking Tour.
Dressed in period costumes, the tour guides spend 10 weeks training, including seminars from noted Annapolis historians and get tour certification from the U.S. Naval Academy. The guides a two-hour-and-15-minute tour that passes the homes of Maryland’s signers of the Declaration of Independence; the State House, which served as the U.S. Capital after the Revolution and where George Washington famously resigned his commission; and the U.S. Naval Academy, with stops at the Academy Chapel, John Paul Jones’ crypt and more.
From March through October, the tours run seven days a week and depart from the Annapolis Visitors Center, 26 West St., at 10:30 a.m., and at 1:30 p.m. from the information booth at City Dock,1 Dock St. (To accommodate the U.S. Boat shows in the fall, the afternoon trip steps off from Market House, 25 Market Space.) The cost is $20 for adults, and children 3-11 are $10.
Watermark also offers a spooky Historic Ghost Walk stepping off at dusk from the Market House. As you walk through the historic district, a guide will tell of drowned watermen, ghosts at William Paca House, headless apparitions, night wanderings, grisly accidents and more.
The ghost tour is on Fridays and Saturdays beginning at 7:30 p.m. through May 18, then at 8 p.m. from May 24 to Aug. 31, plus Memorial Day and Labor Day. Then it’s back to 7:30 in September.
The spookier version of the Ghost Walk offered in October includes a interior tour of one of the Historic District’s houses. The cost is $20 for adults and $10 for children 3 to 11 years old.
The company also offers specialty tours. ArchiTrex tours, in partnership with Historic Annapolis, visit the best examples of Colonial architecture in the historic district. Those tours run two Saturdays a month May through October from 10 a.m. to noon. Tickets are $22 for adults, $14 for children ages 3 to 11, and free for children 2 and younger.
Private tours are available covering Annapolis during the War of 1812 and the Civil War.
Tickets and information at annapolistours.com.
Colonial Tours of Annapolis, a smaller yet dedicated group of Colonial costumed guides, has tours operating Thursday through Saturday until May 5 when the schedule extends to Sundays, too, through October.
Its two-hour and less-than-a-mile Historic Walking Tour is most popular. You’ll see the top spots like the Hammond-Harwood and William Paca houses, St. Anne’s Parish Church and City Dock, and learn how those contributed to life in Colonial America.
The tour operates on a thinner schedule from December through March with February reserved for twice daily African-American history tours detailing the impact of free and enslaved people in the early days of the colony and later.
The tours leave from the Annapolis Visitors Center at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and are $17 for adults and $12 for students ages 10-16. Sunday is one tour only at 1:30 p.m.
Special arrangements can be made for tours outside the regular schedule and for large groups by calling guide Howard Buffington at 410-923-2922.
For further information go to colonialtoursannapolis.com.
The Historic Annapolis Foundation will run two one-day-only specialized tours this month.
The first is Saturday— Lafayette’s Annapolis Walking Tour follows the footsteps of the Marquis de Lafayette, who aided the Colonies in the Revolutionary War and visited Annapolis on several occasions. The tour traces his famous 1824 visit and is led by Historic Annapolis senior historian Glenn Campbell. Reservation are required for the $15 tour. The 10:30 a.m. tour is sold out. Another steps off at 1 p.m. from the porch at Maryland Inn, 16 Church Circle.
On April 24, Historic Annapolis offers a Decorative Arts Tour of the fine examples of work by craftsmen of the Colonial period at the William Paca House and Garden, 186 Prince George St., beginning at 1:30 p.m. $25.
Historic Annapolis also has a computer-aided guided tour accessible via its website at annapolis.org/historic/a-day-annapolis. The map, accessible via smartphone, allows the curious the ability to tap on a location like the Jonas and Anne Catherine Green House on Charles Street. It will give you walking directions and you’ll learn it was once the Greens’ print shop, which published the Maryland Gazette.
The Annapolis Visitor Center at 26 West Street is more than a stepping-off point for other tours.
If you are not inclined to join a guided tour, you and your group can take off across the city yourselves with the detailed itinerary in the free visitor’s guide handed to all comers at the center.
“We hand out some 250,000 guides a year,” said Tatiana Wells, director of visitor services. “And now the guide tour is in several languages for our international visitors.”
The brochure-guided tour highlights 33 sites in the city, more than an afternoon’s jaunt.
“We always say you really can’t do Annapolis in a day. It’s not a one-day destination; Annapolis is really for longer stays if you want to see everything,” Wells added.
For tours with a twist, Annapolis Tours and Crawls offers something different.
Its Haunted Pub Crawl is a favorite all year long. “We see more people taking that because it’s open year-round and more popular in the winter,” company owner Mike Carter said.
The crawl combines ghost stories with 30-minute visits to three or four bars, starting at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. daily. It costs $22, or $18 for active military.
“But our Twisted History Walking Tours are very popular and have been for the past five or six years,” he said. The Twisted History tour looks at other than the storied Colonial, and subsequent, history of the city. It points out where brothels stood, or the secret tunnels used by Colonial rabble rousers to avoid Tory eyes and ears in the years surrounding the Revolutionary War.
The Twisted History tour runs Saturday, Monday and Wednesday at 11 a.m. and is $18 for adults, $12 for children 6 to 11 years old and $15 for active military.
The Tours and Crawls folks also have a popular Walking Ghost Tour, a 90-minute spine-tingling stroll through the Historic District. Tales of spirits lingering in the city include a grave-digger, murder victims and a working girl that haunts Rams Head Tavern. The tours are Sunday through Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the same cost.
All off the company tours step off from the Maryland Inn atop Main Street. To learn more or to make a reservation, go to toursandcrawls.com.
And for those who’d rather taste their way through town, Historic Annapolis Food Tours satiate your culinary curiosity with a trek past important sites and into local restaurants and taverns. The tours — offered Friday through Sunday at 1 p.m. for $60 — feed visitors a full meal with local flair, split up into several stops. Dishes might include oyster shooters, she-crab soup and artisanal flatbreads.
