Clarke Quay

Warehouses that once held cargo, painted up and turned into restaurants. Translucent canopies span the lanes and cool air is blown down under them, so the open air is less punishing. By day most doors are shut, and the visit ends with photographs.

Downstream from Clarke Quay, with office towers standing directly behind it. Shophouses curve along the water in a single line, and at lunch the people who work nearby fill them.

The oldest bridge still standing here. A sign at the approach forbidding cattle, horses and bullock carts is still in place. It went up because the deck could not take the weight, and it now carries only people. Maker's marks in the ironwork can still be read.

The spiral stair everyone photographs is the way down to an old reservoir. On the hill above sit a fort gate, a spice garden and lawns, with the water tank underneath the grass. The stairwell is narrow, so a photograph needs people to pass one at a time.

A collection of what passed through this port. Cargo raised from a wreck in the Indian Ocean fills one room, thousands of ceramics off a single ship laid out as they came up. One bridge over the river gets you there.

The wooden boats that carried cargo now carry passengers. They run a set stretch under the bridges and back, with the buildings on both banks passing, and the roof is low enough that standing brings your head to the beams.

Its 927 windows and shutters are painted in rainbow order. Government offices use the building, so only the courtyard and a ground-floor gallery are open, and the full run of colour needs a photograph from across the road.

One floor is given over to wedding things alone. A ceremony that ran twelve days is laid out room by room, so beaded slippers, the bed and the documents appear in the order they were used.

A headstone in the garden behind carries the name of an orchid. It marks the woman who found in her own garden the flower that became the national bloom, and the church of 1835 is the earliest place of worship in the city. The congregation scattered long ago.

Two buildings, the old Supreme Court and City Hall, joined into one gallery. Courtrooms and holding cells survive as exhibition space, so walls and doors register before the paintings do, and the roof looks over the Padang. Floor numbers disagree between them.

About ten minutes upstream on foot from Clarke Quay, a riverside of cafes and restaurants instead of clubs, and far calmer. Weekend mornings fill with residents out for brunch. The riverside path runs unbroken, so it doubles as an evening jogging route.

A white statue marks the riverbank where Raffles is believed to have first stepped ashore in 1819. It is a copy made in 1972; the bronze original stands in front of the Victoria Theatre nearby. Linking the two makes a short loop along the river.

A former town hall theatre and a hall built in the queen's memory, joined by one clock tower. It is home to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, so evening concerts are frequent. The bronze original of the Raffles statue stands out front.

Built in 1827 as a merchant's house, it is regarded as Singapore's oldest surviving government building. Once parliament left, it turned into a venue for shows and exhibitions. The bronze elephant out front was the King of Siam's gift marking his 1871 visit.