Handpicked experience · Shanghai
Shanghai, China
A staircase engineered so you never see steps and landings at once, a spirit road that bends around a thousand-year-old rival, and bricks signed by the men who made them.
A former capital reachable from Shanghai in under ninety minutes
An architectural staircase with a deliberate optical trick
An imperial tomb approach that had to make room for an older grave
Six centuries of quality control, legible on the bricks
The examination halls that decided who governed China
A twelve-hour day from Shanghai to Nanjing and back by high-speed train, with a local guide in the city: the hillside mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen, the Ming tomb and its curving spirit road, and the Confucius Temple quarter along the Qinhuai River.
Roughly an hour and a quarter on the train in each direction, which is what makes this possible as a day trip at all. In Nanjing the day is walking and short transfers, with a fair amount of climbing at the mausoleum. Bring your passport — it is required to collect and use rail tickets in China.
The approach to the Sun Yat-sen mausoleum is a staircase of three hundred and ninety-two steps in eight flights. The design does something deliberate: standing at the bottom and looking up, you see only steps and no landings; standing at the top and looking back, you see only landings and no steps. The architect won the commission in an open competition and died at thirty-five, before the work was finished. Seen from the air, the whole complex is laid out in the shape of a bell.
The spirit road leading to the Ming tomb does not run straight, which is unusual to the point of being unique among imperial tombs. It curves around a hill, and the hill is the burial mound of a ruler who died more than a thousand years earlier. Rather than level it, the Ming founder is said to have left it in place with the remark that the older king could stand guard at his gate. The road is lined with pairs of stone animals, alternately standing and kneeling.
Nanjing's Ming city wall is the longest city wall built anywhere, and much of it still stands. Its remarkable feature is administrative: each brick was stamped with the name of the workman who moulded it, the foreman who checked it and the official responsible for the batch. A brick that failed could be traced back to a person. Many of those stamps are still legible, six centuries on.
Beside the Confucius Temple stood the largest imperial examination compound in the country, with over twenty thousand individual cells — each a brick box barely large enough to sit in, where candidates were locked for days at a time to write the papers that decided their careers. A number of the cells have been rebuilt, and they are smaller than anyone expects.
Train tickets and attraction entry are arranged separately unless stated in your booking. The day is long and paced by a timetable, so comfortable shoes matter more than usual, and the mausoleum steps are unavoidable.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
About an hour and a quarter each way. That speed is the reason a Nanjing day trip from Shanghai works at all, and it leaves a full day in the city.
Yes. Passports are required to collect and travel on rail tickets in China, and there is no way around it at the station.
There are 392 in eight flights, arranged so that from the bottom you see only steps and from the top only landings. The complex is also laid out in the shape of a bell when seen from above.
Because it goes around the burial mound of a much earlier ruler. The Ming founder is said to have left it in place, remarking that the older king could guard his gate — a decision unique among imperial tombs.
Each carries stamped names: the maker, the foreman who inspected it and the official accountable for the batch. A failed brick could be traced to an individual, and many stamps remain readable today.
The largest in imperial China, with more than twenty thousand cells beside the Confucius Temple. Candidates were locked into brick boxes barely big enough to sit in, for days at a time.
Only if your booking states so. Rail tickets and attraction entry are otherwise arranged separately from the guiding and local transfers.