North Charles Street is the cultural spine of Baltimore north of downtown, a broad boulevard that runs from the Inner Harbor through Mount Vernon, through the Station North arts district, past the Johns Hopkins campus, and on into the north of the city. The stretch from Monument Street to 25th Street is the most interesting — this is where the Walters Art Museum, the Peabody Institute, and dozens of independent restaurants and bars line the sidewalks.
Walking up Charles Street from the monument to roughly 25th Street gives you Mount Vernon's architecture, the cultural institutions, several good coffee shops and bookstores, and the beginning of the restaurant strip that extends into Charles Village. It is Baltimore's most European-feeling street, with a scale and density that rewards slow walking.