An afternoon in Little Italy

This week Ricardo and I are home on a stay-cation, but we've also decided to take a few day trips. Today was our first trip: Baltimore. We've been to Charm City a few times, but the trips have always seemed rushed and left no time for exploring. This time we went up with no real itinerary or exact plan. We talked about eating oysters or Italian food, walking around the harbor or taking a water taxi... we we're sure. 

We also didn't look at a map, got lost, and ended up in an industrial area. With the help of our iPhone, we took little side streets through the city, venturing through Greek Town, passing Johns Hopkins... and lots of other sights we've never seen. Ricardo kept yelling out names of streets that he was SURE he saw on Homicide -- it ended up being a pretty amusing ride. 

We parked our car at the Inner Harbor, because, well, that's what we're familiar with. Now, the Inner Harbor is nice and all... I liked seeing the Coast Guard cutter in the water... but it's just not our style. We wandered around desperately updating our Yelp location to try to find a non-chain restaurant, but we couldn't find anything. We even gave in and went to the ESPN Zone for a drink to regroup, but the margarita was horrible, and I couldn't wait to get out of there (this was after we walked out of the Hard Rock Cafe). 

Not sure what to do, we headed for Little Italy. Pasta... red wine... how bad could it be?

After less than a 10-minute walk, we started seeing these banners. We found it!

The streets are so neat and tidy -- much different than the North End in Boston.

Lots of nice details -- like the tile work on this doorway and bench.

Cute narrow streets.

Little touches everywhere remind you where you are.

A nice little rooftop garden.

After walking around in circles, we randomly settled on this unassuming restaurant, Caesar's Den. Inside was like stepping back in time. The waiter was polite, the food was really, really good, and we left happy, with full bellies.

But what trip to Little Italy would be complete without a trip to an Italian bakery? Believe it or not I passed on all these pastries and settled on a lemon Italian ice and some pizzelles to go.

Little Italy -- we loved your charm and your food. Day one of our stay-cation was successful... so we headed home -- after all, there are kitties to feed.