Overview
Shanghai is a city of two cities, and this two-day tour is built to show you both without exhausting you.
Day one walks the old city: the Yu Garden with its Ming pavilions and rockeries, the Huxinting teahouse, and the Bund at dusk when the colonial bank buildings light up and Pudong's towers begin their nightly display. Day two moves through the former French Concession — plane trees, red-brick lanes and the shikumen houses where ordinary Shanghai life happens — with a stop at the Shanghai Museum or Tianzifang depending on your interests.
It is the right length for a business-trip add-on, a cruise stop or a first taste of the mainland. Your guide handles navigation, tickets and the translation, so you spend the time looking rather than queuing.
- The Bund at dusk with the Pudong skyline lighting up across the river
- Yu Garden's Ming-dynasty pavilions, rockeries and koi ponds
- Art-deco interiors of the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building
- Shikumen lanes and plane-tree streets of the French Concession
- Shanghai Tower or Oriental Pearl observation deck
- Xiaolongbao soup dumplings at a classic Nanxiang restaurant
Itinerary
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1 Old City, Yu Garden & the Bund at Dusk
Lunch Shanghai, 4-star hotel09:00 - Pick-up: Your guide meets you at your hotel, the cruise terminal or Hongqiao railway station.
09:30 - Yu Garden: A Ming-dynasty scholar's garden in the middle of the old city, laid out between 1559 and 1577 around a series of ponds, rockeries and pavilions. The Exquisite Jade Rock — a five-metre limestone boulder riddled with holes — is the centrepiece, and the Great Rockery at the northern end was designed to look like a mountain range in miniature. Around it the bazaar sells tea, fans and chopsticks; we guide you past the worst of the tourist tat.
11:30 - Huxinting teahouse: One of the oldest teahouses in the city, reached by a zigzag bridge over the pond. We stop for green tea and a plate of nanxiang xiaolongbao.
13:00 - Lunch: A restaurant in the old city specialising in Benbang cuisine — the sweet, dark, soy-rich cooking of Shanghai. Braised pork belly (hongshao rou) is the dish to try.
14:30 - The Bund: We walk the riverfront promenade past the customs house and its Big Ben clock, the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank with its mosaic ceilings, and the Peace Hotel, whose jazz band has played since the 1930s.
17:30 - Dusk: We take the ferry across the Huangpu to Pudong as the buildings on both banks begin to light up, then return by metro or car for the classic view back toward the Bund from the riverside.
19:00 - Hotel: Check in. Dinner is free — your guide will reserve a table if you ask.
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2 French Concession, Tianzifang & Departure
Breakfast Not included09:00 - French Concession: A walking morning through the plane-tree streets laid out by the French from 1849. We pass Wukang Mansion, the flatiron-shaped apartment block designed by László Hudec, and continue along Wukang Road and Sinan Road past 1920s villas that now house consulates, cafés and boutiques.
10:30 - Fuxing Park: Where the morning belongs to the neighbourhood — ballroom dancing, card games, tai chi and the occasional erhu player under the plane trees.
11:30 - Tianzifang: A shikumen lane complex turned over to studios, tea houses and small shops. The narrow alleys and exposed brick give a real sense of how ordinary Shanghainese lived in the 1930s terraced houses.
12:30 - Shanghai Museum or Shanghai Tower: You choose. The museum has one of China's finest collections of bronzes, ceramics and calligraphy and is free to enter; the Shanghai Tower observation deck on the 118th floor is the tallest in the country at 546 metres, with the city spread out below.
14:30 - Departure: Transfer to Pudong (PVG) or Hongqiao (SHA) airport, or to the railway station, with your guide assisting at check-in.
Gallery
What's included
- 1 night at a centrally located 4-star hotel
- Daily breakfast and 1 lunch
- English-speaking Shanghai guide
- Private air-conditioned vehicle with driver
- All entrance fees listed (Yu Garden, Shanghai Museum or Tower, Tianzifang)
- Huangpu River ferry crossing
- Hotel pick-up and drop-off within the Inner Ring Road
- Bottled water
Not included
- Flights and trains to and from Shanghai
- Most dinners and all alcoholic drinks
- Hotel city tax if charged directly by the property
- Travel insurance and visa fees
- Tips for guide and driver
- Optional Huangpu River night cruise
