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On this week’s episode of Travel Tales by AFAR, a polar bear biologist shares her first encounter with the world’s largest land predator.

The neighborhoods north of the River Spree—Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte—have long been the hub of Berlin’s cultural and commercial scene. Today, they’re great areas to explore for every type of dining, incredible shopping, and iconic sights.

A weekend trip to visit Berlin offers just enough time to explore some of the city’s history and cultural hotspots, and, of course, tuck into some German cuisine and street food (hello currywurst). If it’s a meet the locals sort of weekend you’re after, pick a few neighborhoods to focus on: perhaps the restaurants, street art, and galleries of Mitte and Friedrichshain? Don’t miss the East Side Gallery. And, on Sunday, Prenzlauer Berg for its open air flea market. A perfect weekend indeed.

It’s fair to say that a trip to the hammam is a quintessential Moroccan experience and is a salve for the soul as much as it is for the body. Fes’s bathhouses may not have the sheer wow factor of those in Marrakech, but they perhaps offer a more intimate and authentic experience at more wallet-friendly prices. Your safest bet is to take a taxi to Nausikaa in the Ville Nouvelle and hang with locals while being treated to a deluxe treatment which involves a luxurious steam, followed by an enthusiastic scrub-down (gommage) with an exfoliating mitt (kessa) and olive oil soap, before getting slathered in rose-scented clay which leaves the skin baby-soft and sparkling. It also offers excellent pedicures and waxing.

If your heart is set on going old-school, be aware that the medina’s hammams are not always as hot, nor as clean, as you might like. In the medina, the pink and womblike hammam at Dar Bensouda is perfect if you’d prefer a private to a public hammam. It’s properly hot, and the local women who do the gommage mix their treatment lotions with lavender and chamomile as well as with other healing herbs and spices. A treatment costs 350 dirhams. The Riad Laaroussa provides a luxurious, candlelit experience. It’s the place to go if you want to experience a hammam with your partner, followed by sublimely relaxing massage. Have a cocktail in the courtyard afterwards; the orange- and cinnamon-infused gin and tonic is legend.

In a sprawling white building on a bustling square in Berlin’s Mitte district, the Circus Hotel offers crisp design and easygoing service at shockingly affordable prices. The owners also run a popular hostel across the street. In 64 airy rooms, suites, and apartments, dark oak floors and funky splashes of red, mint, and hot pink accent a minimalist aesthetic. Offbeat amenities include access to the house Smart car, Segway scooters, bikes, and local cell phones. Make sure you ask for a room on the courtyard: Rooms facing the street can be noisy because of the rattling trams outside.

This appeared in the May/June 2010 issue.

To put it bluntly: If you like ramen and you’re in Berlin, Cocolo is a must. There are two locations thanks to an opening in Kreuzberg, but the Mitte original is worth seeking out for its authentic, Japanese-style ambience. Located next to the larger sushi spot called Kuchi, this tiny place offers a handful of seats, most of which look directly into the open kitchen where several Japanese chefs work their magic. The menu is short and simple, consisting of a few classic ramen dishes (shio, shoyu, tonkotsu, and miso) as well as selected sides like sumptuous gyoza (fried dumplings) and edamame, but the food is expertly made and utterly memorable. The Kreuzberg location has more space, plus extra dishes including sweet pork belly and kimchi.

If you’re looking for a place reminiscent of the smoke-filled cafés of bohemian Paris, look no further than Cafe Cinema. Sitting alongside a popular tourist route in Hackescher Markt, the small, hole-in-the-wall cafe attracts both tourists and locals. In the evenings it’s a great spot for a beer and interesting conversations, and the daytime sees visitors working quietly and enjoying coffee. In summertime, the alleyway nearby has picnic tables, which make a great spot for people watching. The alternative atmosphere can be hard to find in Berlin Mitte, and this is one of the coolest spots in the area.

Run by the famous Spanish shoe brand, Casa Camper is a stylish boutique hotel neatly situated in the middle of Mitte’s hip fashion and culture district. Designed by Jordi Tió and Fernando Amat—the founder of Barcelona’s iconic design store Vinçon—the devilishly good-looking interior is defined by clean lines and striking furniture set against rust-red walls. The rooms are deliberately minimal, with wooden floors and slick designer furnishings, but are decidedly comfortable and include eco-friendly touches such as water-recycling showers. Instead of an in-room minibar concept, the hotel offers a 24-hour buffet that is free for guests. Plus, the hotel’s prime location ensures easy access to the swanky drinking, dining, and shopping options in the neighborhood.

An hour’s drive north of New York City, you’ll find this hotel and its marble bathhouse, where you can warm yourself on a heated stone table. In the Turkish Soap massage, guests are scrubbed with castile soap and exfoliated with a traditional kesa mitt. 634 Pine Hill Road, Chester, New York 10918, (845) 469-1900. This appeared in the March/April 2013 issue.

Looming over one of central Berlin’s most vibrant intersections, this restored Bauhaus building with its distinctive 1920s curved facade was transformed in 2010 into the Berlin outpost of the glamorous Soho House hotel and private members brand. The building has heaps of history, having started as a Jewish-owned department store before being taken over by the Nazis and then occupied by the Communist regime for archival purposes.

Today, it’s one of Mitte’s foremost havens of hip, offering quirkily decorated rooms that mix vintage with contemporary design tropes—think Marshall speakers and old-school record players, floral armchairs, and art deco bathtubs. The lofts are even more astonishing, both for their capacious size and their industrial-chic aesthetic—some come with grand pianos and foosball tables. The hotel also has a rooftop pool and adjacent bar with views of Alexanderplatz, a concept retail area, a private cinema and library room with a bar that hosts occasional events open to the public, an in-house restaurant, and a Cowshed spa that’s a popular destination in its own right.

This is one of the most hectic and lively courtyards in Berlin. Located in Mitte, it is named after the Hackeschen Market, which is across the street. As in many of Berlin’s courtyards, the building complex around it consists of offices, businesses, factories, and apartment buildings. In this specific one sits a well-known movie theater, which makes it even busier. As this was the first courtyard and quite successful, today there are eight other courtyards between Rosenthal and the Sophienstraße. All around the courtyards, you’ll find numerous bars, restaurants, and clubs. The area has become one of the coolest places to go at night.

If you’re looking for the epitome of “Hipster Berlin,” you can’t find anyplace more suitable than Mein Haus am See. In the most hip area of Mitte, Rosenthaler Platz, the cafe is more than just a coffee spot. It’s also a bar and club. During the day, you’ll see locals working on their laptops or drawing in sketchbooks, but when dusk starts to settle, the lights will dim and usually a DJ will be setting up the sound system. Get a seat in the back of the stadium benches and watch time just pass by. As an added bonus: Mein Haus am See offers free Wi-Fi and is open 24 hours!

Owner Carolyn claims that what was once a neighborhood dive bar got its current name when a brawl broke out—the former owner held up the keys, asked if anyone wanted to buy a bar and a local teacher said, “sure,” which prompted one of his friends to say he’d experience a ‘traffic jam.’ Regardless of where the name comes from, Traffic Jam & Snug has been quietly serving patrons in Midtown since 1965, and even though I never heard of them when I was a teenager in Detroit many, many years ago, upon my recent return their name was often the first on the lips of any local I talked to. Maybe that’s because they grow their own produce in a rooftop garden, brew their own beer, create their own cheese, and serve up the best Salted Caramel ice cream I’ve ever had (also made in-house). When you visit, don’t miss the chance to try a pint of their Belgian style wheat ale, the ‘Mitt Wit,’ and definitely don’t leave without trying that Salted Caramel ice cream. Traffic Jam & Snug is on West Canfield between 2nd and Cass, open daily starting at 11 a.m.

The Barn is a bucolic coffee bar in the Mitte district that boasts top-quality coffee (from Copenhagen‘s famed fair-trade Coffee Collective) and a local-food ethos, inspired largely by the owner’s formative years in rural Germany and his mother’s penchant for baking. Ornamented with rustic touches, like bales of hay, knotty wood benches and tables, and a large chalkboard menu, the cafe has cultivated a large bean since it opened two years ago and shows no signs of slowing. I’d make the trip to Berlin just for a cappuccino and a scone.

Roaring waterfalls are frozen in place along the Johnson Canyon Ice Walk, providing one of the most unique hikes in Banff National Park. Picture towering pillars of ice, rushing waterfalls frozen still, and walls of ice stretching in all directions. The Upper and Lower falls are two major highlights. The Lower Falls are best viewed after ducking through a hand-carved cave, while the Upper Falls are completely surrounded by ice. Both waterfalls are still flowing; however, the water is hidden beneath shields of ice. It’s also common to see ice climbers practicing on the nearby walls. The trek follows a series of steel catwalks suspended above the canyon, allowing spectacular views of every ice sculpture. In the summer, this is the busiest hike in the national park. In the winter, it’s practically deserted and it’s best to travel with a guide. They’ll speak about how the canyon was formed, wow the kids with hot chocolate and cookies, and bring the necessary equipment, like ice cleats and trekking poles. Just make sure to dress warm—hats, mitts, ski clothing, and winter boots. The winter season runs December to April, and tours run three times daily, at 8:30am, 1:30pm, and 6:30pm. The latter tour is an abbreviated 2.5-hour version, which only reaches the Lower Falls. All other tours last four hours and take in the entire canyon. From $64. 1-877-565-9372.