Even if you haven’t seen the 1999 romantic romp Runaway Bride, which was filmed largely in Berlin, Maryland, the nearby town is worth a visit. Voted “Coolest Small Town in America” by Budget Travel, Berlin is just forty-seven minutes from Rehoboth (even less from the southern beaches).
For the filming, the already quaint town of Berlin was turned into fictional Hale, Maryland. Julia Roberts stars as Maggie, who has a reputation for leaving her fiancés standing at the altar. Richard Gere plays a writer who gets fired after Maggie complains that the story he wrote about her is inaccurate. He heads to Hale to prove her wrong—I’ll let you guess what happens.
So many locations in Berlin were used in the movie that there is a brochure listing the places and what they were used for in the film. The brochures are available in the Berlin Welcome Center foyer, 24/7, or online at berlinmainstreet.com/Runaway-Bride-Walking-Tour.pdf.
A few locations, such as the Atlantic Hotel, were used as-is for the film, while others took on new names or different entities. The popular restaurant Rayne’s Reef became the Falcon Diner, while other locations served as Maggie’s house, a bridal shop, the Curl Up & Dye salon, and the Hale Post Office.
When it’s not being used as a movie setting, Berlin has fun shops (including the Greyhound Bookstore), a variety of great restaurants (Rayne’s Reef has possibly the world’s best hamburgers and makes real milkshakes and malts), and a mermaid museum.
Consider bundling your visit to Berlin with a visit to Assateague Island National Seashore, a thirty-seven-mile-long island along the coasts of Maryland and Virginia. It’s one of the few places in America where you can see wild horses.
Nancy Sakaduski is a local award-winning writer and editor who finds inspiration in the natural world.
