It says so right there in Frommer's, the popular travel guide. Last week, it rated Baltimore as one of the top 10 "up-and-coming" summer travel destinations in the whole world!

Charm City is right there with Barcelona and Belize, the Catskills in New York and the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.

This comes on the heels of kudos to the Queen City of the Patapsco from another noted trend-spotting publication - The Wall Street Journal. Last Wednesday, in the coveted upper-left-hand corner of Page One was publicity all the promotional money in the world can't buy.

The story - dateline BALTIMORE - told of a house bought for $77,000 a year ago that, after a bit of renovation, sold recently for $300,000.

"The transaction marks a small victory for Baltimore as the city recovers from one of the nation's most relentless urban declines," the article told probably the richest group of readers in the country. "[T]he national real estate boom is starting to transform some neighborhoods long resistant to government or philanthropic recovery programs."

There was even one of those Wall Street Journal etching-type portraits of Mayor Martin O'Malley, wearing one of the dedicated-and-determined looks that he does really well. "He'll call you back in three minutes," a developer raved in the article. (The mayor couldn't stay in town to bask in the reflected glow. By Friday, he was in London, giving politicians there some good government pointers. No kidding! )

The cherry on this double-scoop ice cream sundae arrived late in the week when the bond-rating outfit Fitch gave an A+ rating to $32.3 million in general obligation bonds that will go on the market June 9.

The good rating means that the city will pay less to borrow money. Even more importantly, Fitch raised its "rating outlook" on the city from "negative" to "stable."

Fitch said this reflects the belief that the city's school system finances are now in good shape. Baltimore also was praised for excellent overall financial management, and for the continuing success of ongoing urban redevelopment projects.

You have to understand that these aren't some travel guide writers or even Wall Street Journal reporters. These are no-nonsense dollars-and-cents guys. When they are saying Baltimore is a good bet, it means that, well, maybe there really is something to all of that other stuff.

Certainly, the latest reports are better than the previous Baltimore-in-the-national-news stories, the ones about the stubbornly high homicide rate and the entrenched drug culture and the revolving door of police commissioners.

And they beat the bittersweet spotlight focused on the city during this month's Preakness. It was a gorgeous day and a great race, but much of the NBC television commentary focused on how the Preakness might become yet another example of urban flight, leaving not because of bad schools or street violence, but because the poobahs won't vote to allow a bunch of poor people to lose a lot of money in slot machines so it can help finance the Sport of Kings.

But the fact is, Baltimore's wheel of good PR fortune has stopped here before. Remember 25 years ago when Harborplace opened and Baltimore was the official King of the Urban Rennaissance Cities, William Donald Schaefer was the Greatest Mayor in America and James Rouse of Columbia fame was City Developer Sine Qua Non?

That stuff was nice then, and this stuff is nice now. But the point is, of course Baltimore's a great place. (And, of course, it has a lot of problems). We knew it then, and we know it now.

It was great before there was Harborplace, when you could get a piece of fried rockfish at Connolly's and smell that wonderful aroma wafting out of the McCormick Spice building down around the Inner Harbor.

And while is it fantastic to see tourists coming to Baltimore - the more the merrier, put your money in the pot on the way out - it was great before the brick sidewalks around the water were filled camera-toting parents and their are-we-there-yet?-squalling kids.

It was even great before people started showing up in Hampden and offering to pay $200,000 for some tiny, tiny rowhouse, causing the natives to look at each other and silently mouth, "Who are these people?"

(No surprise - the $300,000 buyers in TheWall Street Journal article are from Washington. Welcome.)

Three very well-known people make this point - John Waters, David Simon and Barry Levinson.

Waters is, of course, master of the schlock-shock genre of filmmaking, now turned Broadway impresario with Hairspray. All of his movies, from the early Mondo Trasho to the legendary Pink Flamingos, to mainstream Hairspray and Serial Mom and the latest, A Dirty Shame, were made here in Baltimore.

Simon is the former police reporter for The Sun who went on the write the book that Levinson turned into the TV series Homicide, which was filmed here. Simon then co-authored The Corner and filmed the HBO miniseries based on that here. That led to the ongoing HBO series The Wire, again all filmed in Baltimore.

Waters and Simon have the kind of resumes that let you move to Los Angeles, buy some big house in some well-heeled neighborhood, and spend the rest of your life doing very little other than going to parties and living la dolce vita while saying you "have a few things in development." It would be easier; that's where the industry they work in is located. Toronto would do if you need a cost-efficient Baltimore stand-in.

But they haven't done that. They're in Baltimore. They are inspired here, they write here, they film here, they work here. And they live here. Why? Because, it's a great place.

Even Levinson, though lost to the left coast decades ago, couldn't leave Baltimore behind. His series of films set and filmed here - Diner, Avalon, and Liberty Heights - show a love affair between a director and city that is close to unique in American filmmaking.

Why? Because Baltimore is like that. It doesn't really matter if they're saying it's the murder capital or the top ten summer destination, what the house prices or the bond rating is, Baltimore gets under your skin.

It's a great place.