Speaking of touristification

While the Main Street area of Annapolis has lost local-oriented retail for the most part--the retail is oriented to the 4 million tourists who visit the city annually, the stores focus on knick-knacks, art galleries, gross tee shirts (although not so vulgar like beach towns)--it appears as if West Street is more oriented to local retail and business, although a lot of it is restaurants, and there are offices, including on the ground floor, etc.

Remember that there are a lot of lobbying offices around the Capitol complex. I wouldn't know what the "Speaker" of either the Maryland House or Senate looks like (I know one the Senate Speaker's last name is Miller; but I don't remember the House Speaker--I don't know what happened to Speaker Frosh...) but apparently one of them was walking down the street, according to a lobbyist talking on a phone while walking by me, who said I have to get off the phone, here comes "the Speaker"...

Annapolis has a fabulous Visitor Center. It puts DC to shame. And while it is smaller, I think it shows well against Baltimore's Visitor Center. They do some really interesting interpretation boards, serve as the central staging location for tours of the city, have helpful clerks-volunteers (although they need a lesson about transit and the MTA services, and MTA materials in the Annapolis Visitor Center are oriented to Baltimore, not Annapolis, and are a couple years old).

Index Keywords: cultural-heritage-tourism