Calvert County has attractions that existed long before the county was founded in 1654. At Calvert Cliffs, you can dig for prehistoric sharks’ teeth and other fossils along the shoreline. For a sharp contrast to your fossil hunting, visit the nearby Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant.

The Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons displays some of the Calvert Cliffs fossils, along with exhibits on boatbuilding and oyster packing. It also has an 1883 cottage-style lighthouse and floating exhibit of boats that once sailed the Chesapeake Bay.

Follow the boardwalk trail through Battle Creek Cypress Swamp Sanctuary, where you’ll find more than 100 acres of bald cypress trees. Many of them are 100-feet tall and four-feet wide.

Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, an environmental preserve where more than 70 archaeological sites trace Maryland’s history back 9,000 years, is in St. Leonard. Flag Pond Nature Park, near Lusby, has 327 acres of woods, ponds, swamps, freshwater marshes and Chesapeake Bay beaches.

The Annmarie Garden is a 30-acre public sculpture park in Solomons. Stroll along the paved path through the woods and you’ll see a variety of permanent and loaned works of outdoor sculpture – the loaned collection includes sculpture from the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Known as the “Charm of the Chesapeake,” Calvert County offers ample opportunities for boating, hiking, camping, birding and golf.

Visit the Calvert County web site.