CINCINNATI, Ohio -- Sitting on a bar stool overlooking the Ohio River, I'm getting a good taste of Cincinnati's future -- and its past.

I'm at the new riverfront pub operated by the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co., which a century ago was Cincinnati's top beer maker and recently was resurrected in the city of its birth.

The beer is old; the venue is new. And the place is packed.

Cincinnati has always done an impressive job of mixing past and present -- its most popular attractions are updated versions of places that have drawn visitors for years, including the Museum Center in historic Union Terminal and Fountain Square, which on warm summer nights is crammed with people.

Cincinnati -- despite its conservative politics -- has always seemed to me to have more in common with Cleveland than the capital city that lies between them. Both Cleveland and Cincinnati sit on important bodies of water and are historic industrial powerhouses trying to reinvent themselves. And both have decades of racial turmoil that they never seem quite able to overcome.

But, like Cleveland, Cincinnati is a fighter.

48 hours in Cincinnati

Miles from Cleveland:

250.

Main attractions:

Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal (housing the Duke Energy Children’s Museum, the Museum of Natural History & Science, the Cincinnati History Museum and, through mid-August, a major exhibit on Pompeii; the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden; the Cincinnati Art Museum; the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; the Newport Aquarium.

Don’t miss:

Historic tours offered by

American Legacy Tours

, including Queen City Underground, Newport Gangster and Civil War Cincinnati. If it’s nice outside, head to the Ohio River and take a walk (or bike ride) through the city’s terrific riverfront park system.

Fans of vocal music will want to block out July 4-14, when Cincinnati hosts the

World Choir Games

, an international competition held for the first time in the United States.

Family-friendly attractions:

The zoo, aquarium, the children’s museum — take your pick. In the summer, check out

Coney Island

, an old-time amusement park with rides and a massive pool, east of downtown on the river.

Adult quotient/cool quotient:

Cincinnati has more top-rated hotels and restaurants than any other city in Ohio. The coolest neighborhood these days is Over-the-Rhine, just north of downtown, where trendy restaurants and shops are opening almost weekly — and the neighborhood welcomes the city’s new casino next year.

Shopping:

Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co. have outlets stores downtown. Or head to

Findlay Market

, north of downtown, for food, flowers, sausages and soap (1801 Race St.).

Lodging:

Historic Hotels of America, operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, lists just three properties in Ohio — all in Cincinnati, including two downtown (the third is the Best Western Mariemont). We stayed a night each in the

Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza

, built in 1931, and

the Cincinnatian

, built in 1882. You won’t be disappointed in either.

With 146 rooms, the Cincinnatian is smaller, more upscale and more modern in decor — pricier, too, with rooms starting at about $190 (601 Vine St.; 1-800-942-9000). The Netherland Plaza is among the city’s largest hotels, with 561 rooms, and hosts a lot of conventions. Its lush Palm Court area, home to the acclaimed Orchids restaurant, is worth a look even if you’re not staying overnight. The decor is classic Art Deco; rates start at about $135 (35 West Fifth St.; 513-421-9100).

Dining:

Around the world in downtown Cincinnati: For French, try

Jean-Robert’s Table

(713 Vine St., 513-621-4777); for Italian,

Via Vite

(520 Vine St., 513-721-8483); and for Mexican,

Nada

(600 Walnut St., 513-721-6232). For more casual fare, check out

Taste of Belgium

in Over-the-Rhine (1135 Vine St., 513-381-4607) and

Tom and Chee

, with locations downtown (133 E. Court St.) and at Newport on the Levee.

Getting around:

Many attractions are an easy walk from downtown, including riverfront ballparks and museums. But to get to Eden Park, home of the Cincinnati Art Museum and Krohn Conservatory, you’ll need to hop in your car (bus service also is available). Meanwhile, the city broke ground in February on a streetcar system that will link downtown and Over-the-Rhine by 2014.

Total cost for weekend:

$750, including $400 for hotels and parking, $250 for meals and drinks, and $100 for admissions and miscellaneous.

The city is experiencing a renaissance, with private development revitalizing once ignored areas -- most notably Over-the-Rhine, the historic district just north of downtown that has become a gathering spot for the young and trendy.

I've been traveling to Cincinnati for a couple of decades now, ever since my sister went to college there and never came home. I'm not usually visiting as a travel writer, but as a sibling staying with family.

Last month, though, I made the trip as a professional tourist -- and was amazed by the transformation this city is making.

Friday night: on the river

The Moerlein Lager House is not the place to have a quiet conversation. The place is packed on weekend nights, especially when the Cincinnati Reds are in town. I could barely hear my husband, screaming from across the table.

Not to worry. We had good beer to drink, German-inspired pub food to eat and big screens to watch the Reds get beat up by the visiting Houston Astros (though we almost didn't need the screens -- the ballpark is right next door, and had we been a tad bit higher, we probably could have seen the action on the field).

The restaurant/brewery opened in February, one of the first occupants in a long-awaited residential and commercial development known as the Banks, located on the riverfront between the Reds' Great American Ball Park and the Bengals' Paul Brown Stadium. Other gathering spots here include Toby Keith's I Love this Bar and Grill, which also opened in February, and Holy Grail, a local chain of sports bars.

But the Moerlein Lager House offers the truest taste of Cincinnati.

Christian Moerlein, a German immigrant to the city in the 19th century, founded what became Cincinnati's top-producing brewery in 1853. Prohibition put the company out of business, though the Moerlein name was reintroduced in 1981 by former crosstown rival Hudepohl.

In 2004, Cincinnatian Gregory Hardman bought the Moerlein brand (and later, Hudepohl) and has grand plans to turn the city back into a prolific beer producer.

He seems to be off to a fine start. Moerlein's Over-the-Rhine Ale is its signature brew and top seller, a smooth, drinkable ale that was my favorite of the five we sampled. My husband's top pick: the Moerlein Barbarossa, named after a German emperor, a double-dark lager that wasn't too heavy.

After dinner -- a beer-can chicken melt, and fried pickles and peppers -- we walked the short distance to the John A. Roebling Bridge, once the longest suspension bridge in the world, which links Cincinnati to Covington, Ky. The bridge was finished in 1867, the same year Roebling starting working on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.

Nearly 150 years later, it's still a beaut -- and pedestrian-friendly, to boot. We walked halfway across, where we engaged in a quick conversation with a couple of guys riding on a barge below us. They wanted to know whether the Reds won (sorry, no).

We made one last stop before calling it a night. Graeter's, which has been filling Cincinnatians' bellies with high-fat ice cream since 1870, has a shop on Fountain Square, conveniently open until 11 p.m. We made quick work of a couple of scoops of black-raspberry chip (the company's top seller), then waddled across the street to our hotel, the lovely Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza, built in 1931 at the height of the Art Deco design movement.

(One final thought about Fountain Square, which a decade ago was as deserted and avoided as Cleveland's Public Square: A renovation in 2005 brought the crowds back, with a permanent stage for summertime concerts and events, and a huge screen that was showing highlights from the Reds game while we ate our dessert. It felt safe, clean and comfortable. Cleveland leaders, take note.)

Saturday morning: the former beer district

Moerlein's Over-the-Rhine beer put me in the proper mood for my first Saturday activity: a two-hour tour of the city's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, a 2-square-mile area just north of downtown, once the epicenter of urban decay and now the city's trendiest and most up-and-coming ZIP code.

Before its decline, the neighborhood was home to tens of thousands of German immigrants, who turned Cincinnati into the third-largest beer producer in the country behind Milwaukee and St. Louis. The name Over-the-Rhine was coined during the canal era, when the Miami and Erie Canal split growing Cincinnati in half, with wealthy Anglo Saxons residing south of the canal and newly arriving Germans living north of ("over") the canal ("the Rhine").

American Legacy Tours' Queen City Underground tour commences at 12th and Vine streets, the epicenter of the neighborhood's gentrification, where a handful of upscale bars and restaurants have opened alongside trendy shops in 150-year-old Italianate buildings. The only bad thing about the resurgence of the neighborhood, said tour guide Adam Hartke, is that "when you come down here on a Saturday night, you can't find a place to park."

As we moved farther north, however, away from downtown, the decades of neglect began to show in peeling paint, empty buildings and boarded windows.

As we walked, guide Mitch Ruth pointed out where Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley performed in the late 1800s; where August Hermann, owner of the Reds in the early 20th century, came up with the idea for the World Series; and where, in the 1940s, Ezzard Charles (aka "the Cincinnati Cobra") trained for boxing matches.

The highlight of the tour came when we headed underground, via a narrow staircase at the rear of an apartment building. Our destination: three stories below ground, into the lagering tunnels constructed by the Kauffman Brewing Co., which in the late 19th century was one of the largest breweries in town.

The tunnels, with a constant temperature in the mid-50s, were used in the production of lager beer, which requires a longer, cooler fermentation period. "There are tunnels like this all over this neighborhood," said Hartke. "But they became obsolete in the 1890s, with artificial refrigeration."

Because of Prohibition, as well as the rise of anti-German sentiment during the world wars, Over-the-Rhine's German population assimilated throughout the region.

Over decades, the neighborhood evolved into the city's most crime-ridden, with an estimated 75 percent of its buildings uninhabitable, according to Ruth. The neighborhood hit rock bottom about the same time it was named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Most Endangered Places list in 2006. Since then, it's been clawing its way back, thanks to millions of dollars in private and public investment.

The walking tours, which started in 2009 as a one-time fundraiser, have exploded in popularity, bringing hundreds of residents and visitors to the neighborhood on Saturday mornings, often reintroducing them to an area they have avoided for decades.

After the tour, I walked a few blocks northwest to 160-year-old Findlay Market, a lively, colorful space, with dozens of vendors that attract suburbanites to the city with sausages and soaps, fruits and flowers.

As an out-of-towner with no access to refrigeration, I was limited in what I could buy (no Queen City brats for me), so I settled on a small jar of honey and some chocolates.

My husband and kids -- who had spent the morning at the terrific Cincinnati Museum Center, home to the Duke Energy Children's Museum and the Museum of Natural History and Science -- picked me up and we headed back to 12th and Vine streets for lunch, at the new Taste of Belgium, for sweet, dense waffles (with or without fried chicken), Belgian meatballs and other treats.

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Saturday afternoon: art in the park

After lunch, we headed to Eden Park, the 63-acre public space just east of downtown atop Mount Adams, the tony, hip neighborhood that sits about 400 feet above the Ohio River. More than a dozen bars and restaurants are tucked among the neighborhood's curvy roads, many with terrific views of the city. But we didn't come up here to eat.

The park is home to a variety of attractions, including the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Krohn Conservatory, Playhouse in the Park, Seasongood Pavilion, hiking trails and more. Our destination: the art museum, which, like Cleveland's, offers free admission -- a key consideration, given that my kids had been through two museums in the morning, and I wasn't sure how long they would last in a third.

But last they did, thanks in part to a kid-friendly scavenger hunt that led us through nearly a dozen galleries looking for, among other works, an elaborately carved maple bed, a Meissen porcelain tea set and a Tiffany lamp.

The highlight here, however, wasn't the search but the Soundsuits, elaborate costume creations by Chicago-based artist Nick Cave. The Soundsuits -- apparently they generate a lot of noise when they're worn -- are made of recycled fabrics, buttons, scavenged toys, sequins, vintage hats, pipe cleaners and lots more.

Sad to say, the Cave exhibit has moved on (to the Boise Art Museum in Idaho). But the Cincinnati museum has lots coming up this summer, including an exhibit on pioneering African-American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner and "The Art of Sound: Four Centuries of Musical Instruments."

After the art museum tour, we drove back downtown, checked into our new hotel (this time the classy Cincinnatian, built in 1882), then headed out for one more activity. I had promised my daughters a downtown retail rendezvous, so we walked around the corner to Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's.

Yes, Cincinnati still has two downtown department stores (three, if you count nearby T.J. Maxx), while Cleveland has none.

It doesn't hurt, certainly, that Macy's is based in downtown Cincinnati. And city officials have provided financial incentives to keep Saks happy. Whatever the reasons, downtown retail in Cincinnati is alive and well -- as proved by the multiple bags we carried back to our hotel late Saturday afternoon.

Saturday night: a gastronomic delight

Cincinnati has no shortage of great places to dine: Of 11 Ohio restaurants on AAA's prestigious four-diamond award list, six are in Cincinnati (whereas Cleveland has one, Lola).

Even with so many fine choices, my selection was easy: I wanted Jean-Robert de Cavel to cook for me.

I've been dining with de Cavel, a native of France and the Queen City's most celebrated chef, for decades -- first at the Maisonette, the city's five-star French restaurant (which closed in 2005); then at Jean-Robert at Pigall's, another superb French eatery; and now at Jean-Robert's Table, a more casual French bistro he opened in 2010.

"This used to be a Longhorn Steakhouse," said my sister, who joined us for dinner. Doesn't look like one now.

Nor does the food inside bear any resemblance to its previous occupant's offerings. On our table that night: bacon-wrapped salmon, scallops in a light truffle sauce, and 3 Little Cochon (pork ribs, belly and tenderloin) with a medley of beans and country potatoes with blue cheese.

Tres bien, Monsieur de Cavel!

Sunday morning: brunch, bikes and a bridge

Underground Railroad center worth the time, no matter the day

Our Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati was supposed to be spent studying the city’s critical role in the development of the nation’s elaborate Underground Railroad network in the decades leading up to the Civil War.

Unfortunately, this passenger didn’t do her homework: Cincinnati’s deeply moving National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, suffering from serious budget problems, eliminated Sunday hours several years ago.

So, at the end of our 48-hour Cincinnati getaway, we headed to the Newport Aquarium instead.

No disrespect to the fish — they were great — but I really wanted my kids to experience the freedom center. At 11 and 13, they are the perfect ages to embrace the museum’s central message: That real change occurs one person at a time, from the escaping slave to the Underground Railroad operator to the individual men and women fighting slavery and injustice today.

The museum opened in 2004 amid much fanfare yet has fallen far short of projected visitors and revenue. I suspect that’s because once you’ve toured the museum — located on the Ohio River, the symbolic dividing line between captivity and freedom in the mid-19th century — you don’t feel the need to return.

But I’ve visited twice, and each time came away touched by the experience.

The museum formed an alliance earlier this year with the Cincinnati Museum Center, which is expected to provide financial stability to the facility for years to come.

That’s a good thing — because I will bring my children back. And next time, I’ll make sure to check the museum’s hours.

Editor’s note: The freedom center recently announced it will be open Sundays this summer, starting today (the museum remains closed on Mondays). Hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. For information, go to

freedomcenter.org

.

Another elaborate meal was on the agenda Sunday morning, this one back at the Hilton Netherland, which offers a traditional Sunday brunch with lots of flair and all the fixings: made-to-order waffles and omelets, peel-and-eat shrimp, smoked salmon, prime rib on the carving table and overflowing desserts. The setting of the Palm Court made the meal even more special: two-story wall murals, vaulted ceilings, Brazilian rosewood paneling and nickel fixtures -- finished off with an ice sculpture and live music.

We had calories to burn off -- lots and lots of calories -- so we headed back to the river, where a series of waterfront parks invites activity.

To cover a greater distance quickly, we rented bikes at Wheel Fun Rentals, then headed west along the river, through Sawyer Point, with tennis courts and playgrounds, outdoor concert venues and wide lawns for festivals and large gatherings.

We turned around at Paul Brown Stadium and headed back east, biking past the famous Montgomery Inn and into International Friendship Park, with flower gardens, sculptures and intertwining pathways, designed to resemble a friendship bracelet.

Finally, we headed south across the Purple People Bridge, a former railroad bridge now closed to vehicular traffic, linking downtown Cincinnati with the entertainment complex Newport on the Levee in Newport, Ky.

It had been years since our last visit to the Newport Aquarium, so we took a quick cruise through to see what was new. Quite a bit, actually: Mighty Mike, an 800-pound American alligator captured a decade ago in northwest Florida, has a new home in Newport for the next year.

And two rare shark rays, Scooter and Sweet Pea, are entertaining audiences with their smooth moves and unusual looks (they appear to be a cross between a shark and a stingray).

As compelling as the Shark Tank is, however, my favorite spot here remains the Jellyfish Gallery, where dimly lit tanks of the slow-moving jellies are set to music and almost elevated to fine art.

After a pass through Penguin Palooza, it was almost time to say goodbye to Cincinnati.

But first: a quick stop at Tom and Chee, a small local chain of trendy eateries specializing in tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Dividing then devouring our grilled-cheese doughnut, we took one last look at the city skyline from the southern bank of the Ohio River. The water and bridges perfectly framed the ballparks and tall buildings in the late-afternoon sun.

From this angle -- from nearly every angle -- Cincinnati's future looks sweet indeed.