Handpicked experience · Shanghai
Shanghai, China
A house type invented in a refugee crisis, garden dragons given four claws to avoid execution, and streets named so the map of China tells you which way you face.
The tour begins with a visit to the Bund which for years was the symbol of Shanghai.
Then you will walk to Yuyuan Garden, one of the finest private gardens in China, known for its classic landscape architecture.
Yuyuan Old Street:-Stop at a market that sells birds and crickets, as well as an antique market, where you can rummage for bargain items.
Former French Concession
Residential lanes as well as the photogenic waterfront
A Ming garden's outer walls and the market that grew around them
Shaded Concession avenues that feel like another city
A guide who can explain what you are walking past
Four hours with no vehicle and no fixed queue to join
A four-hour walk through old Shanghai on foot only: the Bund and the view across to Pudong, the lanes and bazaar around Yu Garden, the residential alleys of the old Chinese city, and the tree-lined streets of the former French Concession.
Flat walking, four hours of it, at a pace that allows for stopping. You meet the guide rather than being collected. The route deliberately spends time in ordinary lanes where people live, not only on the frontages that appear in photographs.
For its first years the foreign settlements were meant to house foreigners only, with Chinese residents living in the walled city to the south. That arrangement collapsed in the 1850s, when the Taiping rebellion drove hundreds of thousands of refugees into the settlements in a matter of months. Landlords threw up cheap terraced housing at speed to accommodate them, and the form that emerged — a British-style row house wrapped around a small Chinese courtyard — became the standard Shanghai dwelling for the next century.
These houses are called shikumen, meaning stone gate, after the heavy stone door frame at the entrance to each. They open off narrow lanes rather than streets, and the lanes function as shared rooms: laundry hung on bamboo poles across the gap, vegetables prepared on doorsteps, card games, bicycles, conversation carried between upper windows. Many are now sublet room by room. Walk through quietly — these are homes, not exhibits.
Yu Garden was built by a Ming official as a retirement present for his father. It took nearly twenty years and consumed most of what the family had. Its walls are topped by undulating dragons in grey tile — and the dragons have four claws, not five, because five was reserved to the emperor and using it was a capital matter. The story goes that when questioned, the owner insisted the creatures were not dragons at all, merely something that resembled them.
The Concession street names were replaced in the 1940s using a simple scheme that still works: streets running north to south carry the names of Chinese provinces, and those running east to west carry the names of cities. Once you know it, you can orient yourself anywhere in central Shanghai from a street sign alone.
The Concession's avenues were planted with plane trees by the French administration, and they are still called French planes here, although the species is the same London plane found across Europe. They were chosen for shade and speed of growth, and they are the reason those streets feel entirely unlike the rest of the city in summer.
Wear comfortable shoes; this is a walking tour with no vehicle at any point. Entry to Yu Garden itself is arranged separately, and the lanes are busiest and most alive in the morning.
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.
A terraced house with a heavy stone door frame, opening onto a narrow lane rather than a street. It combines a British row-house plan with a small Chinese courtyard, and it was the standard Shanghai home for about a century.
The Taiping rebellion pushed hundreds of thousands of refugees into the foreign settlements in the 1850s. Landlords built cheap terraces fast to house them, and the resulting hybrid stuck.
Yes, many of them room by room. Laundry, cooking and card games happen in the lane itself, which is why the tour walks through quietly rather than treating it as a set.
Because five claws were an imperial monopoly and using them could be fatal. The owner is said to have argued that the creatures on his wall were not dragons at all.
North–south streets are named after Chinese provinces, east–west streets after cities. The scheme dates from the 1940s and still tells you which way you are facing.
No. The tour covers the guide and the walking route through the precinct and bazaar; the garden itself is arranged separately.
None — it is walking throughout, on flat ground, for four hours. You meet the guide at the agreed point rather than being collected.