Why is it, whenever I meet cool people at parties, they went to university in Newcastle?

It seemed to be a utopia compared with Sydney. You could live in the centre of town in an old woolshed and pay $60 a week rent, surf every morning and go to gigs every night where mini-Silverchairs prepared for world domination.

Two hours’ drive from Sydney – or three by train or bus – the city is home to 200,000, which means there’s plenty to do, particularly for those coming for 48 hours. But happily, Newcastle has managed to retain its large country/coastal town vibe.

At the time of my most recent visit, it was a hot weekend in Sydney – and when I returned there, all I heard was moaning about the crowds and the difficulty in finding a parking spot at Bondi beach. This was not an issue in Newcastle, where there was plenty of space to go around.

Then there’s the creative vibe. Newcastle is a city of arts festivals. My favourites include the National Young Writers festival (29 September to 2 October 2016), where old pubs, cafes and halls are turned into places to debate and discuss books, computer game design, sound engineering, journalism and current affairs; and the This Is Not Art festival – on the same weekend – is also worth the visit.

When I visited this month, the city was hosting the Newcastle Writers festival in the civic precinct and the place exuded a buzzy vibe, particularly with the Saturday market nearby, where you could get a massage, buy clothes from local designers and sample food from the food trucks parked along the market’s perimeter.

But that creative energy is not limited to festival time. Renew Newcastle has been repurposing old buildings as creative spaces since 2008 and the initiative is a worthy template all cities could use to transition from a primary manufacturing economy to a creative and tourist economy.

Friday

6pm: check in to Novotel

After arriving from Sydney via public transport, I check into the new Novotel hotel on the eastern edge of the city. It’s a modern tower with great views of the beach, and 88 clean and spacious rooms. My room on the sixth floor looks out on to the ocean and has a balcony. Already I feel like I’m on a beach holiday.

7pm: cocktails and Israeli food

A thriving cocktail scene is not one that would normally be associated with the steel city image of Newcastle. Plus, the problems with booze and violence were so great that the city was the original home of lock-out laws later adopted in Sydney.

I meet my friend Div for a drink. He grew up in Newcastle and cheerfully admits he was bashed pretty much every time he went out.

There’s a different vibe now, he reckons, and urges me to check out old-school pub the Lass, which is a bus or taxi ride out of the CBD, as it’s famous for its live music.

But for now, we are enjoying cocktails in the centre of town at a bar called the Basement on Market Street.

In addition to an impressive drinks menu (I have a Chilly Tommy’s cocktail, chilli blanco tequila with agave and lime, served with a chilli salt rim; my friends try Passionfruit Peacock with vodka, lychees and passionfruit), Basement on Market Street also has a terrific tapas menu. We try beef carpaccio, house-made falafel and hummus on recommendation from the chef, who worked at some of the top restaurants in Israel.

I chat to one of the bar’s managers, who tells me:“I went to uni here five years ago and there was nothing here in terms of bars. It was really violent. The lock-out laws have changed it. There are some really great smaller bars, plus the pubs and two main nightclubs.”

Saturday

8am: swim

A great way to start the day is with a swim at the Newcastle Ocean Baths. With its art deco pavilion, the baths are one of the city’s outstanding historic landmarks and a popular place to sunbake, lounge and read, and do laps.

Newcastle is not short of great places for breakfast. I stuck close to home with breakfast at the excellent East End Hub next to the Novotel. The coffee is excellent and the service friendly.

11am: walk along the foreshore

There are remarkable harbour foreshore walks and the council has done a great job opening up the natural beauty of Newcastle’s coastline to cyclists, runners and walkers.

Bikes are available for hire from automated stations at Crowne Plaza or the nearby Maritime centre, operated by Spinway Newcastle. Swipe your credit or debit card, choose a bike and hit the trail. Prices start from $11, with free helmets, locks, maps and 24-hour returns.

The pick of the walking paths is the newly opened Memorial Walk, billed in the tourist brochures as Newcastle’s most spectacular coastal walk.

Built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1915 landing at Gallipoli, the route features a 160-metre clifftop bridge adorned with steel silhouettes of soldiers, inscribed with almost 4,000 surnames of the thousands of Hunter Valley men and women who enlisted during the first world war.

It links to the Bathers Way promenade development, a six-kilometre coastal walk linking Newcastle’s beaches and stretching from Merewether ocean baths to Nobby’s beach.

1pm: lunch on Honeysuckle Drive

This new development on the harbour front is shiny in a Melbourne Docklands way. The food and drinks (including many awesome local Hunter Valley wines) in the outlets along the drive are good, and you can watch the ships come in from the port, but there is nothing particularly striking about the precinct.

3pm: visit Newcastle Art Gallery and shop

One of NSW’s best regional art galleries, the Newcastle Art Gallery is family friendly with artists’ talks, workshops, children’s art trails and weekend interactive programs.

For shopping, visit the boutiques on Darby Street. The quirky and unique Odditorium, which is only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, is located nearby, at 14 Thorn Street.

7pm: dinner at Restaurant Mason

After opening in November 2011, Restaurant Mason received its first chef’s hat, in its first year, and has maintained the hat for four consecutive years.

We enjoyed the six-course degustation menu with matching wines,which included a course of steamed fish, squid ink linguine, scallops, crispy prawns, sharred shallot and X.O Sauce, followed by confit egg yolk, King brown mushrooms, black garlic, wild rice, truffle and woodland sorrel with garlic flowers.

Also recommended for splashing out: Subo, the only two-hatted restaurant in town. Their autumn menu looks deliciously light and full of flavour – and includes Mooloolaba scallops and steamed barrumundi from Arnhem Land.

For something more casual, Napoli Centrale comes recommended as Newcastle’s best pizza, or if you’re after takeaway fish ‘n chips on the beach then visit Scotties, which has been operating since 1950.

10pm: time for a nightcap

Newcastle has some great bars including the Red Baron – a Berlin-themed bar that channels the spirit of the 1920s and 30s and also serves Japanese food, The Edwards – an old coin-op laundry morphed into one of Newcastle’s buzziest venues by musician Chris Johnston and Silverchair bass player Chris Joannou, and Coal & Cedar – a dark, watering-hole in the wall reached via an unnamed door at 380 Hunter Street. It has a speakeasy vibe and a few drinks there will make you want to move to Newcastle. It’s as good as anything you’ll find in Sydney – without the attitude.

Sunday

9am: trip to the Farmers market

The Newcastle Farmers’ market is held on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings at the Newcastle showground and neighbouring Hunter stadium. Port Stephens oysters and saltbush lamb are among the delicious local produce for sale.

11am: time for a surfing lesson

I meet Dan Frodsham, the founder of Newcastle Surf School at Nobby’s Beach for a one-on-one surf lesson.

Dan provides all the gear and will even push the back of your board into the surf so you don’t get too tired paddling out. After an hour, I had fallen down plenty of times, but at the very end of the lesson, tentatively – for a millisecond – I stood up.

1pm: to the lighthouse

Nobby’s Lighthouse Grounds are currently open to the public every Sunday from 10am to 4pm. Access is free, with views of Newcastle city, the harbour and the ocean. It’s a great spot for whale watching from May to November each year, with peaks in sightings occurring in July and September.

• Guardian Australia travelled to Newcastle as a guest of Destination NSW