Despite the name, this is way more AirBnB than hotel – soft beds, small rooms with an integrated kitchen complete with bread-baking machine. Furnishings and design are of minimalist Scandinavian/purist persuasion, the color scheme muted. If you’ve ever been to IKEA, you’ll soon find your way around. Your balcony or terrace is the best place to enjoy the coffee you made on arrival because from there, you can also see the lay of the land. Everything in this neighborhood is designed for practicality: The buildings and apartments tend to be on the small side and entirely devoid of extravagant flourishes. On the way to breakfast, you pass by examples of typical architecture, such as Kallio Church on a hill two blocks away, which towers above everything else and is therefore visible from the hotel. Built in 1912, it was reputedly designed to emulate Solomon’s temple.

Feel free to dawdle or your walk to breakfast won’t last very long: It’s just 230 meters from the hotel to the Rupla. Yellowing sign on the doorstep, worn front door, and old wooden tables – all is exactly as it should be, since this place combines art with food. It serves up changing exhibitions along with sandwiches and good coffee. Lunch comes at a very reasonable price, tastes goods and is made from ingredients that would otherwise be thrown away. Single-speed bicycles are parked outside the door, while inside, the café is filled with bearded men and women who work as models: The Rupla is supposedly the hippest place in all of Helsinki. Second-hand clothes (mainly from the 1970s) are sold in back, and if you take a particular fancy to your chair while munching on carrot cake, you are welcome to take it with you because all of the furniture is also for sale. Hence the Rupla’s regularly changing decor.

Only a few hundred meters further off, but this time in the other direction: It’s time to spare a thought for loved ones at home and buy them a gift. How about some impaled butterflies under glass from a Finnish industrialist’s collection? If so, then Wanha Kaarle is the place to head for. It is crammed with all manner of stuff: pots and pans, lamps, china ducks and plastic fruit, newspaper stands and tea cups, wooden train sets and dolls. This shop is so small that it even uses the street as a storeroom in good weather. Much of what is sold here is impractical, but few articles are truly ugly. In fact, the same premise can be applied here: Scandinavians and design simply go well together. And anyone needing a dress to match their newly acquired plastic dog can take a quick look next door, where Frida Marina stocks every possible style of clothing from the 1950s to the 1980s, most articles are very well preserved and many of them of Finnish design. Coffee is also served here – organic, naturally.

We exit Torkkelinmäki briefly in the interests of looking good for our evenings’ activities and in search of The Barber Shop. It is also located in a hipster area, Punavuori, the coolest place in town before Torkkelinmäki became the coolest place. This doesn’t worry owner Rody Maher, a Brit, who’s been in business here for the past 25 years. He trims beards by appointment and old English custom, which more or less means that everything here is rather conservative and/or has a very Victorian feel to it.

Back to Torkkelinmäki. See and be seen. This park with a bear monument at its center is a popular meeting place for young and old alike, especially in the summer. Because more and more LGBT events are being held here, it has also been the focal point of gay life in the Finnish capital for years. There are plenty of bars and restaurants close by, but the simply named Bear Park Café is the most popular. The flowers in the middle of the park were planted in the late 1990s with the idea of driving the drunks away with the beauty of the plants and the bustle of the volunteer gardeners, who today number more than 100 today. The plan was not entirely successful, and a lot of drinking still goes on here on weekends. Style-conscious visitors always bring an intellectual magazine along to the park.

Been a while since your last cup of coffee? Quick, head to the Cardemumma. The wait staff may blow hot and cold like the wind on the Baltic, but the cinnamon buns here are the best in town. They are gigantic, served warm and by Finnish standards almost given away. And there’s no need for the more health-conscious to steer clear of the place, either, because the menu also includes salad and changing daily specials. These are not the main focus, however, which is on sweet treats: In addition to the cinnamon buns, there’s a vast array of cakes, biscuits and various sweet rolls. You’ll likely find yourself spotting your first familiar faces again here because Rupla and Wahne Kaarle are not far off. In the summer, this really small café simply spills out onto the street. You’ll see hipsters sitting alongside people who have been living in the neighborhood for decades here.

If you want to see nice, friendly Finns getting into a heated debate, just tell them it was the Russians who invented the sauna. Suddenly, the people all around you will become extremely communicative. Part of the evidence they cite to prove that the Finns can outdo their eastern neighbors where the sauna is concerned is the year, 1929, in which this particular sauna was built and opened. Not only is it the oldest in the city, but it is entirely in concrete, too, so the stone on which you sit is really hot. Towels are nevertheless frowned upon and even the small wooden seat planks are used only by crybabies. The only wood in the hot room is birch, which is burned to heat the place up to 100 degrees Celsius. Infusions here are also more on the rustic side – if you want to heat things up a little, you just pour water onto the embers around the stove (and then quickly turn away to avoid the rising ash). To cool off, you step outside the door onto the street – just two meters away from passersby lugging shopping bags or taking their dogs for a walk or their kids to the bus. Obligatory: a beer at the end of each session in the hot room. Gin and vodka mixers are also available here, but they count as non-alcoholic.

We make another quick detour to hipster neighborhood Punavuori. That’s easy because in Helsinki (almost) everywhere is within walking distance. And the good reason to go there now is the Naughty Burger, which supposedly serves the best burgers in Helsinki. Evil tongues might say that’s hardly a feat; Helsinki is, after all, the capital of fast food chain Hesburger, which certainly doesn’t employ such magnificently tattooed wait staff. And where else can you listen to heavy metal from Biohazard or Anthrax while you wait for your fries? Still, you will see plenty of young moms with small children here. Please note: on sundays, the Naughty Burger closes at 7 p. m.

Everyone can be a DJ here and include their own songs on the playlist, but the music still isn’t terrible, which speaks for the guests. The Pulmu is also proud of a long drink that was created especially for the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki and which it serves in practical, large tumblers. The interior decor is reminiscent of a travel agency of the legendary American airline Pan Am in the 1950s: everything here is generally reminiscent of aviation and specifically of the legendary US airline. As the Pulmu is small, the atmosphere is quite intimate, making it another place to discover how very communicative the Finns are. Any claims to the contrary are plain wrong!

According to the Guardian, the Kaiku is one of Europe’s top nightclubs. In Helsinki, it’s described as “Berlin-style.” Be that as it may, it is certainly one of the few clubs in town to have bouncers on the door. It occupies a former industrial building that housed a match factory that also produced metal clips for spring mattresses, as well as an industrial bakery. The operators of the Kaiku took the old division of space as the basis for their concept for a club with different floors. Electro is the dominant music genre here, but the intensity varies. International and Finnish DJs alternate, the sound booming from the speakers is superb, and when exhaustion sets in, dancers can step out onto the balcony or terrace for a breath of fresh air. It’s the perfect place to spot trendsetting Finns in golden jackets and swim caps. Worth remembering: On weekends, there’s a very long line outside the door.

Once the greatest sea fortress on the Baltic, Suomenlinna occupies an entire island and was built by the Swedes in the mid-1700s and, along with the historic castle, now houses theatres, bars and restaurants.

Designed by Carl Ludwig Engel, the magnificent 19th-century Helsinki Cathedral looks more like a Greek temple than a church but is utterly spectacular from the inside.

More than half a century old, the Linnanmäki Amusement Park is a charming old funfair complete with traditional rides and a wooden roller coaster that’s as old as the park.

More than 170 years old, the National Museum of Finland charts Finnish history from prehistory to present day via a series of often eye-opening exhibits.

Hewn out of solid bedrock, the Temppeliaukio (rock church) opened in 1969 and has been wowing tourists and locals alike ever since. Designed by architects Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen, it doubles as a concert venue.

Unveiled in 1967, the vast Silbelius Monument commemorates composer Jean Sibelius and was designed to resemble a set of organ pipes by architect Eila Hiltunen.

One of the oldest zoos on the planet, Helsinki Zoo opened in 1889 and is home to more than 1,000 different species of plant and 200 different types of animal.

With a focus on art created from the mid-1960s onwards, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art has pieces by all the modern masters as well as an on-site theatre specialising in experimental dance.

Completed in 1938 and used as the centrepiece for the 1952 Olympic Games, Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium remains one of the Finnish capital’s main sport and music venues. It also boasts a museum and a 72m (236ft) tower, complete with a viewing platform at the top.

Helsinki’s Parliament building might not be the prettiest but it is impressively large and contains a number of interesting exhibits as well as its very own café.

Incredible views thanks to its location on the 14th floor of the Sokos Hotel.

A super-chic gay bar in central Helsinki. Live music and great cocktails.

Caribbean-themed fun and excellent mojitos.

A popular rock ‘n’ roll themed bar that thankfully eschews death metal.

A Helsinki institution, Tavasiaklubi is ridiculously popular with the style set.

Dishes are themed by the part of Finland they come from and everything is fresh and organic.

Voted Helsinki’s best restaurant four years in a row, Nokka is the place for gourmet Finnish fare.

The grand dame of Helsinki restaurants, G.W Sundmans serves Finnish classics with a twist.

Good beer and new Nordic food of the sort more often found in Copenhagen.

A taste of Finnish home cooking for those on a budget.