Baltimore is one of the great industrial cities of the Eastern seaboard. Housed in an old oyster cannery, the Baltimore Museum of Industry demonstrates how the city worked during the Industrial Age. Check out the machine shop, the kids' cannery, the children's motorworks assembly and feel the power of a 1906 steamboat in the museum's extensive permanent exhibit.

For Kids:

Think of this place as the Industrial Revolution equivalent of a farm museum: It helps children grasp how most urban Americans spent their days in the 19th and early 20th centuries - turning raw materials into manufactured goods in factories and craft shops. This transformed Baltimore cannery has hand-on exhibits of a machine shop, a sewing loft, a printing press and an assembly line. Not a place with slick multimedia demos, it offers mostly satisfying, turn-the-crank exploration. Special weekend activities, for $1 to $2 extra, let kids work at canning oysters (Sat 11, 2:30; Sun 2:30) and making small model cars (Sat-Sun 1).

-- by John Kelly and Craig Stoltz

Nearby: Fort McHenry.

For Food, your best bet is a quick drive to the Inner Harbor area.