Shanghai
China'S Largest City And Financial Centre, With The Treaty Era Bund Waterfront Facing The Pudong Skyline Built Almost Entirely Since 1990 · Shanghai, Shanghai
China's largest city and the one that looks least like the rest of it. Shanghai was a minor county town until the treaty settlements of the 1840s handed stretches of it to foreign powers, and the century that followed built a European waterfront, a French residential quarter of plane trees and lane houses, and a reputation. After 1949 it went quiet; after 1990 the farmland across the river was designated a new financial district, and Pudong went up so fast that its skyline is younger than most of the people looking at it. Standing on the Bund you have the 1920s banking houses at your back and a wall of supertall towers across the water, which is the single clearest picture of what happened to China in a hundred and fifty years. The rest of the city is the interesting part: the former French Concession, the water towns out on the edge, and a food culture that is distinct from anywhere else in the country.
Zhongshan East First Road, Shanghai, Shanghai, 200002, China
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the streets have none: the Bund, the promenade and the former French Concession are public and always open, and the Bund is lit after dark. What has hours are the sites, and the structural trap is BOOKING RATHER THAN OPENING: the FREE Shanghai Museum and several other attractions run TIMED ADVANCE BOOKING and refuse walk-ups. Observation decks run late. The metro runs early until about eleven. Confirm the booking requirements.