Where to stay in Pittsburgh: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Downtown fills the point of land where the Allegheny and Monongahela join to form the Ohio, and locals call it the Golden Triangle. It is small enough to walk end to end, from the fountain at Point State Park to the restaurants around Market Square, and it has kept a remarkable stock of early-1900s architecture that the city's hoteliers have put to very good use.

You can sleep in a 1903 landmark with a flamboyant boutique interior, in a former industrialist’s office building, or high above the rooftops with views to PNC Park and the river bridges. The hockey arena is a walk away and the ballpark and football stadium are just over the water. For a first visit, or a short one, this is the obvious base.

Along the Allegheny side of Downtown, a run of once-shabby blocks has become the Cultural District: restored theatres, concert halls and galleries, busy most nights of the week. Hotels here include one of the city's most recognisable landmark buildings, and apartment-style suites in an early-1900s block, with full kitchens and washing machines for anyone staying a while.

Keep walking and you reach the Strip District, a run of old warehouses where Pittsburgh shops for food: Italian grocers, fishmongers, coffee roasters and street stalls, at their best on a Saturday morning. Some of the city’s favourite restaurants and bars are here too, and it is an easy stroll back to the theatres.

Cross the Allegheny on one of the yellow bridges and you are on the North Shore, home to PNC Park, widely reckoned one of the prettiest ballparks in America, and the Steelers’ stadium a short riverside walk away. Stay here on a game weekend and you can leave the car where it is; there are microbreweries, restaurants and the Andy Warhol Museum for the hours in between.

On the other side of Downtown, across the Monongahela, Station Square sits at the foot of Mount Washington, where century-old funicular railways haul you up to the best view in the city. Follow the river east and you hit the South Side, whose main street is lined end to end with bars. Hotels on both banks are modern and good value, and you can walk back to Downtown over the bridges.

Three miles east of Downtown, Oakland is Pittsburgh's university and museum district. The University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, a Gothic tower you can see for miles, anchors one end; Carnegie Mellon is within a mile; and between them sit the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History and the Victorian glasshouses of Phipps Conservatory.

It is a lively, studenty place to stay, full of cheap good food, and the hotels are better than you might expect of a campus district. There is a stylish hotel with a rooftop terrace and restaurant, and several newer places right among the university buildings and hospitals. The stadiums are all within about four miles.

Beyond Oakland, the East End is where Pittsburgh lives, shops and eats. Shadyside is the prettiest part, all Victorian houses and boutique-lined streets, and has a small, romantic inn in a period mansion. Next door, East Liberty has reinvented itself around restaurants and shops, with a handsomely restored hotel at its centre.

Lawrenceville, down by the Allegheny, is the one the food writers love. Butler Street runs for a couple of miles past breweries, cocktail bars, vintage shops and some of the most interesting kitchens in the city, and you can stay in a former vocational high school that has kept its character. None of this is on the standard tourist circuit, which is much of the appeal.

Pittsburgh International is well west of the city, so if you land late or leave early it makes sense to stay out here. The hotels around the airport and nearby Moon Township are full-service places with indoor or outdoor pools, restaurants and free shuttles, a few minutes from check-in.

Between the airport and the city, Robinson and Settlers Ridge form a big shopping and dining district, with newer all-suite hotels alongside. Downtown is about 15 miles from here, so this is a base for convenience and free parking rather than atmosphere.

Cranberry Township lies about 20 to 30 minutes north of Downtown, where Interstate 79 meets the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That junction is the reason to stay: it is an easy place to break a long drive, with shops and restaurants close to the hotels and wooded business parks all around. Rooms are spacious and well priced, many hotels have indoor pools, and parking is never a problem. Use it as a stopover or a budget base, and drive in for the sights.