Chongqing

A stack of stilt-house shops leaning on the cliff, the whole front lit gold after dark. From the main road above you enter at the top storey, then ride the lifts down toward the river. The full picture only fits from the bridge across the water.

Line 2 of the monorail runs straight through a 19-storey block of flats, between the sixth and eighth floors. To watch it, leave the station and cross to the viewing deck below the building; trains come every few minutes, so the wait is short.

Porcelain boats on the Jialing unloaded at this landing through the Ming and Qing, and the town is named for that trade. Its stepped lanes are packed with twisted-dough shops and teahouses; weekend crowds carry you along, so come on a weekday morning.

Since 1987 these cabins have crossed the Yangtze as commuter transport, though nearly everyone aboard now is a sightseer. The crossing itself is over in minutes, but the holiday queue can take one or two hours, so go early in the morning.

Raised to mark victory in the war against Japan, it took its present name after 1949. Around it lies the busiest shopping district in Chongqing, ringed with department stores and stalls, and Hongyadong is ten-odd minutes away on foot.

Buddhas and story panels cut into the rock between the late Tang and the Song, made World Heritage in 1999. The Thousand-Hand Guanyin at Baodingshan was found to have 830 hands when counted in restoration. The drive takes some two hours; give it a day.

Three stone arches span a deep sinkhole, left by nature when the ground fell in. A lift takes you to the floor and you walk beneath them; a Transformers film was shot here. It is about three hours from the city, so many stay a night.

Relics and rock inscriptions moved out of the Three Gorges before the dam flooded them. One room under a dome wraps a 360-degree screen round you showing the gorges as they were. It faces the Great Hall of the People across a square, so the two go together.

An assembly hall completed in 1954, its round blue-tiled roof modelled on the Hall of Prayer at Beijing's Temple of Heaven. After dark lights trace its outline, and many people take photos from the square.

A lookout on the Nanshan slope south of the river, facing the Yuzhong peninsula as it narrows to a point between the two rivers. Best at night once the towers light up, and a taxi ride of about thirty minutes from downtown.

An old printing works turned into cafes and studios, made popular with young visitors by the films shot here. From the rooftop railings the Jialing and the tower blocks across it fill the view, and Eling Park is a short walk uphill.

Home from 1942 of Joseph Stilwell, the US general who was chief of staff in the China theatre. His office and bedroom are laid out as in his day, hung with Burma front photos and maps. Down the slope from Eling Park, beside the factory lofts.

A stone stairway linking the high streets with the riverside quarter, named for its eighteen landings. Its old houses were razed and rebuilt in period style as teahouses and gift shops; at night, with lanterns lit, shoot looking up from the foot.

Chaotianmen is the very tip of the peninsula, where the rivers merge; on a fine day the brown Yangtze and the greener Jialing flow side by side. The Crystal, a glass bridge laid across four towers above, has a deck looking straight down on the meeting.

Qing-era halls put up by the many settlers who moved west into Sichuan from Hunan and Hubei, grouped by home province. Carved wooden stages and shrines survive beside displays on the migration. By Dongshuimen on the Yangtze, a walk from Chaotianmen.

Two Nationalist jails for Communists and other political detainees; in November 1949, just before Chongqing fell, many inmates were shot. As the setting of the novel Red Crag it draws Chinese tour groups, and a shuttle links the two sites.

A path along the southern cliffs of the Yuzhong peninsula, threading old houses and stairways. Former embassies and residences of the 1930s and 1940s line the way, with the Yangtze just below the railings. It climbs and drops nonstop; wear good shoes.

An old dock street on the Yangtze's south bank, where foreign trading houses and warehouses from the treaty-port years survive among stone steps. The Yuzhong skyline sits dead ahead across the water, so people gather as the towers light up at dusk.