SHANGHAI · CHINA
Neon spires, plane trees and the river between them.
The Bund and Pudong skyline by boat, French Concession walks, Yu Garden afternoons and bullet-train day trips out to Suzhou, Hangzhou and the canal towns.
Only in Shanghai
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Skyline cruises and walking tours exist in every big city. These three don’t. The skylines facing each other, the only district in China still laid out like a 1920s European boulevard, and a Ming-Qing canal town that survived inside the modern footprint. Build the rest of the trip around them.
Two skylines, one river
The Bund & Pudong
Nowhere else has its colonial waterfront and its futurist skyline facing each other across a half-kilometre of river. The Bund's 1920s stone facades on one side; Pudong's Shanghai Tower, Jin Mao and the Bottle Opener on the other. The two halves of the city are best seen back-to-back, on foot or by boat.
- 1 Yu Garden, Old Street, Bund & Zhujiajiao Water Town Bus Tour
- 2 Shanghai Day Tour to Zhujiajiao Water Town, Yu Garden, Bazaar, Bund
- 3 Shanghai Pudong Airport to Shanghai Hotels: Private with Meet & Greet Service
On foot through the lilong
The French Concession
No other district in China looks like this. Plane-tree streets laid out by 1920s town planners, art deco apartment blocks, and lane houses (lilong) tucked behind grocery stores. The whole quarter is walkable at a slow pace, exactly the opposite of how the rest of Shanghai feels.
- 1 Late Night Food Tour in the Shanghai’s French Concession
- 2 Shanghai Breakfast Walking Tour of Former French Concession
- 3 French Concession Guided Walking Tour | China’s 1st & Best Rated
Forty minutes west
Zhujiajiao Water Town
A Ming-Qing canal town that survived inside Shanghai's footprint. Stone bridges, lantern-lit canals and tea houses you reach by walking, or by a wooden gondola that crosses under five-hundred-year-old arches. The closest a day trip gets to a different century.
- 1 Shanghai Private Tour: Zhujiajiao Water Town and Boat Ride
- 2 Shanghai: Zhujiajiao Private Tour w/ Boat Ride & Garden
- 3 From Shanghai: Private Zhujiajiao Tour with Boat Ride
Where Shanghai starts
Start with the one that everyone books.
If it’s your first afternoon in Shanghai, start here. The Bund, the river, the Pudong skyline, all on one tour.
The classics
Shanghai's Most Popular Tours
The Bund, Pudong, French Concession, Yu Garden, Zhujiajiao. The Shanghai every traveller wants to see on a first visit.
By neighbourhood
Pick a corner of Shanghai.
Each side of the river is a different city. The Bund for the old facades. Pudong for the spires. French Concession for the plane trees and the lilong. Yu Garden for the gates. Zhujiajiao for the canals. The Huangpu for the way they all line up at sunset.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to see it.
By boat if you want the skyline view. On foot for the lilong alleys. By bike through the plane trees. Highlights tours for the first day. Evening shows for after dark. Bullet train for Suzhou and the water towns.
The river that runs through it
Three ways onto the Huangpu.
Daytime for the Bund facades, sunset for the colour change, full neon-night for the Pudong skyline at its loudest. The boat is the only way to see both halves of Shanghai at once.
After the sun drops
Shanghai’s evening shift.
The Pudong skyline lit up from the Bund waterfront, acrobatics in a 1920s theatre, dinner cruises with the neon. Our three favourites for the half of the city that only shows up after dark.
If you came for the food
Xiaolongbao and the rest.
Soup dumplings at the counters where the locals queue, hairy crab in season, scallion oil noodles, sheng jian bao straight from the pan. Three food walks we’d send a hungry friend on.
Out on the bullet train
The day trips Shanghai is built around.
High-speed rail puts Suzhou’s gardens 30 minutes away, Hangzhou’s West Lake an hour, Zhujiajiao’s canals 40 minutes by car. Three day trips you can do without changing hotels.
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