|
|
|
|||||||
|
St. Michaels/Oxford Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Mill Street, Navy Point. Built on mounds of crushed oyster shells, this growing museum founded in 1965 is the town's major tourist attraction. Its focal point is the 1879 Hooper Strait Lighthouse, one of only three cottage-type lighthouses remaining on the bay. You learn what a lightkeeper's life was like and pass some interesting exhibits of fog signals, lamps and lenses as you climb to the top level for a bird's-eye view of the St. Michaels harbor. The Waterfowling Building contains an extensive collection of decoys and guns. The museum has the largest floating fleet of historic Chesapeake Bay boats in existence, including a skipjack, log canoe, oyster boat and crab dredger. They're maintained in a traditional working boat yard, where you get to see craftsmen at work and view a small display of primitive boat-building tools. Other attractions include the Small Boat Shed, a bell tower, a Victorian bandstand where concerts are staged in summer and a good museum shop. (410) 745-2916. www.cbmm.org. Open daily, 9 to 6
in summer, to 5 in spring and fall, to 4 in winter. Adults, $9.
St. Michaels Walking Tour. A self-guided walking tour with a map is provided by the St. Mary's Square Museum and the St. Michaels Business Association. It covers the meandering waterfront, including the footbridge from Cherry Street to Navy Point (one wishes there were more footbridges to get from point to point), the Talbot Street business section and St. Mary's Square, an unusual town green laid out away from the main street and apt to be missed unless you seek it out. The map identifies 23 historic houses (none open to the public), churches and sites. We found equally interesting things along the way. The St. Mary's Square Museum, On the Green. One of the town's
oldest Colonial houses was moved to this site, restored and furnished.
It is joined to the 1860 Teetotum Building, so named because it
resembles an old-fashioned top. The display areas of local memorabilia
and history are open weekends from 10 to 4, May-October. Donation. Patriot Cruise, Navy Point, St. Michaels. Since most of its meandering shoreline is very private and far from view, the best way to see and savor this part of the Eastern Shore is by boat. Capt. Carl Thornton provides a leisurely hour-long cruise up the Miles River on a two-deck boat carrying 180 passengers. He advised beforehand that he points out “birds, houses, duck blinds, whatever I see.” We saw the Mystic Clipper in the distance, various kinds of bulkheading to prevent shore erosion, several osprey nests on channel markers, the ruins of St. John's Chapel, and some mighty impressive plantations and contemporary homes. We learned that James Michener wrote Chesapeake in a rented house along the river. Our only regret was that the boat didn't go closer to the sights the guide or the taped narration were pointing out on the eleven-mile round trip. (410) 745-3100. Cruises April-November,
daily at 11, 12:30, 2:30 and 4 (weather permitting, minimum fifteen
persons). Adults, $10. Biking. The flat, meandering country is good bicycling terrain. Favorite day trips by bike or car are across the old Tred Avon River ferry to Oxford, which has an ever-so-British yet Southern feeling, or out to a different world on Tilghman Island, where much of the Eastern Shore’s famed seafood is caught and the watermen are ubiquitous. Another scenic byway is Route 579 to Bozman and Neavitt. Shopping. Most of the area’s shopping is found along narrow
Talbot Street in St. Michaels, and much of it has to do with the
area’s position as a waterfowl center (the annual mid-November
Waterfowl Festival draws 20,000 people to neighboring Easton and is
considered the best of its kind in the country). One of the most stylish
shops is the Chesapeake Trading Company, which started dispensing
coffee, cold drinks and books and now, in expanded quarters, showcases
apparel, hats, jewelry, clocks, frames and coffee mugs with the carved
heads of loons as handles, along with books and an espresso bar. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth, copyright 2003, and from Waterside Escapes in the Northeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2005. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
page |
Full destination index | |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
