Car service in Annapolis, MD

Downtown Annapolis still follows its street plan from the 1690s, with Church Circle and State Circle at the center and narrow streets running down to the water. Main Street, Maryland Avenue and the lanes around the State House have little room for a car to wait, especially on weekends.

So for a downtown pickup, the more exact the better: the house number, the side door of an inn, the restaurant where you're finishing dinner. Your chauffeur pulls up as close as the street allows. Weddings at St. Anne's on Church Circle or the Naval Academy Chapel, and dinners along Main Street and City Dock, are where that detail matters most.

Visiting for the first time? A few hours by car around the State House, the Naval Academy and the harbor, stopping where you like, is a city tour.

The Academy fills the town several times a year: Commissioning Week in late May, Induction Day in early summer, Plebe Parent Weekend in August, and home football games at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in the fall. Families fly in from everywhere, hotels sell out and rides get booked early.

Book the airport transfer as soon as your flights are set. A Sprinter van carries up to 10 people with their luggage, which suits two families sharing the trip. Getting onto the Yard depends on the security rules in force at the time, so tell us the gate or building you're headed to and we'll plan the drop-off around them.

Each October the sailboat and powerboat shows take over City Dock, with street closures and almost no parking downtown. A drop-off at the edge of the show beats circling for a space, and an hourly booking keeps the car nearby for when you're done.

From January into April, the Maryland General Assembly is in session at the State House. Lobbyists, advocates and staff go back and forth between Annapolis, DC and the airports, and an hourly booking keeps a car on call between meetings around State Circle.

Eastport sits across Spa Creek on a drawbridge that opens for boats, so pickups there allow a few minutes for the bridge. Its restaurants, marinas and the Annapolis Maritime Museum on Back Creek are popular evening stops.

West Annapolis, near Rowe Boulevard and the stadium, and Parole, around the Annapolis Towne Centre and the hotels by US-50, are the quickest starts for the airports: both are a few minutes from US-50 and I-97.