Taipei

The Qing imperial collection came here by ship in the winter of 1948, ahead of the civil war. It outruns the halls, so displays rotate every few months: if you came for one object, check it is out. The museum sits in Shilin, a bus ride past the metro station.

Stairs run from the indoor deck on floor 89 to the open air on floor 91, though the open deck shuts on windy days. Hung between floors 87 and 92, a 660-tonne gold sphere damps the sway when a typhoon comes through, in full view of the walkway.

Founded in 1738. Buddhist, Daoist and folk deities share the front and rear halls. Only one draws a queue of its own: the Old Man Under the Moon, at the back on the right, who handles matchmaking. One road crossing from exit 1 of the metro.

Inside the market building the food is all in the basement hall, so anyone who walks only the upper floor goes away having seen clothes and shoes.

One straight street of about six hundred metres with an arch at either end: go in at one arch, come out at the other, and you have seen the lot. There are no side lanes to lose yourself in. Exit 5 at Songshan station opens onto the western arch.

Eighty-nine steps climb to the main hall, one for each year Chiang Kai-shek lived. The National Theater and the National Concert Hall face each other across the plaza, so on performance evenings the steps fill with people waiting for a curtain.

You cannot get into Thermal Valley. The water sits above eighty degrees, so it is the steam you look at. Xinbeitou needs a change at Beitou onto a one-stop branch line. The open-air baths want a swimsuit and cap, and run in sessions so pools get refilled.

Qixingshan, at 1,120 metres the highest point inside Taipei City, stands in this park. Sulphur vents hiss out of the bare hillside beside the Xiaoyoukeng car park. An hour by bus from downtown, but colder up top and often fogged in, so carry a layer.

A wholesale street since the late Qing, selling dried seafood, medicinal roots and tea from open sacks. For a fortnight before Lunar New Year the road closes and traders push samples at everyone passing. Walk it looking up: the shophouses kept western fronts.

Twenty minutes of steps and Taipei 101 stands square in front of you; the six big boulders in every photograph collect tripods from an hour before sunset. Stretches of the path have no lighting, so a torch matters more on the way down than on the way up.

A winery that opened in 1914, now galleries, a concert hall and shops. Walking between the brick warehouses costs nothing, and only the exhibitions inside sell their own tickets. A craft market fills the yard at weekends.

The site of a tobacco factory built in 1937. Long arcades still ring the baroque garden pond beside the boiler chimney, and one old warehouse houses the Taiwan Design Museum. Allow 10 minutes to walk from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall station.

A car-free grid of clothes shops and cinemas that draws the young. At its mouth stands the Red House, an octagonal brick market from 1908 that now holds craft studios. In the evening the open-air bars behind it fill up as a gathering place for the LGBTQ crowd.

A temple to Baosheng Dadi, god of medicine, dense with ceramic roof figures and dragons carved on the pillars. Its restoration won a UNESCO Asia-Pacific heritage award in 2003. The Taipei Confucius Temple is across the road, so most people see both.

A small temple wedged into Dihua Street, where people queue to ask the matchmaking god beside the City God for a partner. You take home a red thread and a sweet, and couples who meet return with candy as thanks. Weekend afternoons leave little room to turn.

A 1972 hall honouring Sun Yat-sen, with eaves that sweep upward. The main building shut for renovation in February 2024, pausing the honour guard; only the park around it is open. Taipei 101 rises between the trees from the pond on its western edge.

A 1969 shrine holding the tablets of the war dead. On the hour the honour guard marches in step from the gate across the wide courtyard to the inner hall, and the walk alone takes a good while. Stand by the gate and the column passes right beside you.

It climbs a little over 4km from the zoo station to the tea slopes of Maokong. Cars with glass floors, called Crystal Cabins, have a separate queue. Teahouses brewing Tieguanyin wait up on the ridge, and the line stops in high wind or thunder.

A small night market of two rows of stalls on one road, with no clothes stands, only food. The biggest crowd waits at the fried taro balls with egg yolk inside. Walk over from Zhongshan or Shuanglian MRT station.

Twenty-six hectares of woodland at the heart of downtown, which locals call the lungs of Taipei. Egrets and squirrels come close at the ponds, and the open-air bandshell hosts shows on weekend evenings. The metro station sits at the park's southern corner.

Single-storey homes built in 1948 for arsenal workers from the mainland, the first military dependents' village in Taipei. The rows left are now cafes and exhibition rooms. Taipei 101 rises straight behind the low roofs, so a tripod or two is always set up.

A row of brick shopfronts from the Qing and Japanese periods behind Lungshan Temple. Its name comes from peeling the bark off fir logs floated in by river. Visitors are scarce, so the arched arcade stays quiet, and entry costs nothing.

A palace-style hotel of red columns and golden tiles, opened in 1952 on a hill visible across the city. A paid guided tour walks the emergency escape tunnel dug in the Chiang Kai-shek era. The lobby is open to anyone, guest or not.

A Guan Yu temple that removed its incense burners in 2014 and takes no offerings. Instead volunteers in blue robes perform shou jing, a rite to calm a frightened spirit, and people line up for it all day. Xingtian Temple MRT station exits beside the gate.

A north-coast cape lined with mushroom rocks carved by waves and wind. The famous Queen's Head grows thinner at the neck every year and is expected to snap one day. The queue for a photo with it is long, so many pose with the replica nearby instead.

An Atayal village in the hills south of Xindian, with hot springs rising beside the river. The old street sells bamboo rice and wild boar skewers, and a little further up the 80m Wulai Falls comes into view. The bus from Xindian MRT takes about 40 minutes.

A temple to Qingshui Zushi that the painter Li Mei-shu began rebuilding in 1947, and the carving is still unfinished. Its stone columns and beams are often called the finest carved in Taiwan. The red-brick arcade street in front sells horn-shaped croissants.