Shanghai

Above a kilometre and a half of riverside walkway stand the banks and trading houses of the 1920s and 1930s. Their fronts face east across the water, so morning light suits them. By evening it is Pudong opposite that lights up. Cross the road by underpass.

Pan Yunduan laid it out in 1559 for his father. Dragon-crested walls split it into quarters. Only the garden charges and the bazaar is open to all, so people often work the shops and never reach it. Smoke is said to rise from every hole in the Jade Rock.

Look at the sky before you buy a ticket. On a grey day cloud sits at deck height and there is nothing to see. The deck is on level 118 of the 632-metre tower, the Jin Mao and the World Financial Center hard beside it, with one spot below that fits all three.

The alleys take two people abreast, so on a weekend you go the way the crowd is going. These are shikumen lanes of the 1930s, left as they were with only the ground floors turned into shops. People still live upstairs, and their washing hangs over the lane.

Shikumen again, but not handled the way Tianzifang was. Here the brick shells were kept and the interiors rebuilt for wide walkways and outdoor tables, with the residents moved out — lit at night, the seam where brick meets glass shows on every front.

Plane trees put in during the 1920s meet overhead and hold the shade all summer. Where six roads converge stands a wedge-shaped block of 1924, the crossings full of people photographing it, though one lane back it is residential and quiet.

You walk into this canal town from Zhujiajiao station on line 17. Ride to the terminus and there is no town. The five-arch Fangsheng Bridge is Ming work, named for the fish bought on it and let go into the river. Boats run rowed or motorised, at two prices.

The People's Square building sets a round roof on a square base. It turns an old saying about round heaven and square earth into a shape. From the side it reads as a bronze ding on its legs. Admission is free.

Pagoda and temple stand on either side of a road, and the pagoda is not climbed. Its seven timber storeys are looked at from the street before you go in at the temple gate. From late March into early April, peach blossom in the grounds draws people.

A slaughterhouse of 1933, its concrete ramps for moving cattle between floors tangled into a maze. The block is square outside and round within, with bridges strung across the gap on every level. Offices and shops fill it now and nobody takes a ticket.

Built to house two jade Buddhas the monk Huigen brought from Burma in 1882. The seated one has its own upstairs hall, which takes a second ticket on top of entry, and bans photos. Many come just for the vegetarian noodles in the temple canteen.

A gold-roofed temple wedged among the towers of West Nanjing Road. It claims a third-century founding, though most halls now are recent rebuilds. Many toss coins up onto the crown of the courtyard incense burner for luck, and the metro station is right below.

A car-free shopping street from People's Square to the Bund. Department stores opened from the 1910s on still line it, and a little sightseeing train runs down the middle for tired feet. Once the neon is lit at night it fills with people walking to the Bund.

Spheres large and small threaded on concrete columns, 468 metres high and finished in 1994. At 259 metres a glass-floored ring walk shows Lujiazui's streets below your shoes. It is the tower in the middle of every shot across the river from the Bund.

Once Hongkew Park, where Yun Bong-gil bombed a Japanese military ceremony on 29 April 1932. The Meiting memorial to him inside takes a separate ticket. Lu Xun's tomb and memorial hall share the park, and mornings bring singing and dance groups everywhere.

A three-storey shikumen house down a lane off Madang Road, the Provisional Government's offices from 1926 to 1932. Entry needs a passport and photos are not allowed inside. Xintiandi is under ten minutes' walk away, so many pair the two.

Tilanqiao in Hongkou sheltered Jewish refugees from Europe through the 1930s and 1940s, and their Ohel Moishe synagogue now holds the museum. A courtyard wall is packed with the refugees' names. The lanes around keep red-brick houses from those years.

In 1937 a single Chinese battalion held out against the Japanese for days in this warehouse on Suzhou Creek's north bank. The west wall keeps its shell and bullet holes unfilled. The memorial hall inside is free if you book online.

The red inverted pyramid built as China's pavilion for Expo 2010, now an art museum. Its roof copies stacked dougong brackets and shows from afar. The permanent collection costs nothing, and the halls are so big that modern Chinese painting takes half a day.

Step off Metro Line 9 at Qibao and you are in it, the nearest water town to downtown. The lanes are free to walk and only the small halls inside take tickets. The northern lanes are lined with snack stalls, and at weekends the crowd slows to a shuffle.

A red-brick basilica finished in 1935 crowns Sheshan hill in Songjiang. The path up passes the fourteen Stations of the Cross one by one. Pilgrims pack it in May, the month of Mary, and an old observatory stands right beside it.

Opened in 2016, with Metro Line 11's Disney station at the gate. The largest of all Disney castles rises at the park's heart, and the longest queue is for the TRON coaster. Since 2019 you may bring your own food in.

Its building coils like a nautilus shell inside Jing'an Sculpture Park. Dinosaur skeletons and mounted animals fill it, so most visitors come with children, and visits run on booking online. Closed on Mondays.