This Half Day tour is a great orientation tour of Shanghai, visiting some of the most important landmarks and locations in Shanghai, including the Bund, Yu Yuan Gardens, Shanghai Old Street, the French Concession and Xintiandi.

Begin with a visit to the Bund, Shanghai's waterfront, known for its grand display of colonial-era architecture and the wonderful views of both sides of the Huangpu River.

From the Bund, head over to the Yu Yuan Gardens, a classic creation of the Ming Dynasty. Nearby is Shanghai Old Street which had its origins in the Qing Dynasty.

Drive around the former French Concession and stop by the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Store.

The last stop will be Xintiandi, a stylish nightlife district with many boutiques, pubs, and restaurants. You are free to have a couple of drinks at a venue of your choice, or head back to your hotel with the group.

This full day excursion is one of the best day trips from Shanghai and includes a visit to two of the most interesting and picturesque of the canal towns in Eastern China, Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. See stone bridges, pagodas and beautiful gardens.

Suzhou, just 90 km West of Shanghai is known as the 'Oriental Venice', and is one of the most historic cultural cities in China. It is renowned for its beautiful stone bridges, pagodas, and more than 150 meticulously designed gardens, which are known for their delicate designs, containing hills and ponds, terraces, corridors and towers. It is also famous for its silk production.

From Suzhou also visit Zhouzhuang, 30 km East of Suzhou and the best preserved of China's Water Towns.

This is a join-in tour departing around 7:30 am and returning around 5:30 pm. Private tours are also available.

Discover Shanghai's historic French Concession with it's tree-lined boulevards and chic boutiques and atmospheric Old Shanghai including Yu Yuan Gardens, a superb example of Chinese landscape gardening.

In the morning head for the French Concession, a symbol of a time when Western powers were accorded many privileges. Stroll through Fuxing Park and see locals practising their ritual of morning exercise. Especially worth watching are the tango dancers whose music fills every corner of the park. 

Afterwards wander the surrounding streets, where colonial homes have been transformed into restaurants, bars and boutiques. During colonial times the French Concession was a no-go zone for the police and was home to gangsters, mafia, opium traffickers and was where Shanghai earned itself the title of one of the world’s vice capitals. 

Continue on to Xintiandi, an entirely renovated area and one of the liveliest parts Shanghai. This part of the walking tour ends at Tianzifang, a maze of animated alleyways full of restaurants, boutiques and small art galleries similar to those found in Xintiandi but much more authentic. 

Shanghai's Old Town has mostly been rebuilt but which still has some of its old lilongs (which are like the hutongs found in Beijing) alive with the chatter of the Shanghainese and decorated with people’s washing strung out across the streets to dry.

The Old Town is also home to the famous Yu Yuan Gardens, a superb example of the art of Chinese garden landscaping, which is particularly common in this region. Traditionally Chinese gardens are a miniature reproduction of nature: the presence of rocks represents mountains, ponds represent lakes and running water imitating rivers. Their shape is therefore never rectangular, encouraging visitors to wander around with only their thoughts and no definite aim.

Either transfer back to your hotel or carry on your exploring independently and visit the local bazaar, where visitors and locals come to haggle. Alternatively stop for tea at the famous Huxingting Tea House, at the centre of the lake opposite the Yu Yuan Park.

For those with a deeper interest in gardening we can arrange to meet with a Chinese gardener who will talk to you about his art and notably about penjing (bonsai) trees.

Alternatively enjoy a traditional Chinese massage, or 'acupressure', which concentrates on acupuncture points to stimulate the body’s natural healing throughout the whole body.The massage and meeting with the gardener are optional and are at an additional cost.

China has a rich fusion of ancient popular belief systems, Confucianism doctrines, and Taoism (all originating in China), and Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity from abroad.

Mixing of religion, or syncretism, is incredibly common in China and as such it is very hard to provide exact statistical breakdowns of numbers following each religion, although it is certainly true that Buddhism is the largest. What can be shown with certainty is the incredible spirituality of the country, coupled with the absence of official state religions throughout the country’s history.

As such it is not rare to find tributes to one of the many Taoist gods in Buddhist temples, or statues dedicated to Guanyin (the Chinese version of the Indian Buddhist deity Avalokitesvara) in Taoist temples (where she goes by the name Tianhou).

Start the day with a visit to the Jade Buddha Temple, the most well-known temple the city has to offer and which attracts crowds of visitors each day. The famous jade statue was one of 5 such examples brought back from Burma by a monk from Putuoshan (an island just offshore from Shanghai that boasts one of Chinese Buddhism’s sacred mountains).

Continue with a visit to the Cathedral of Saint Ignacio, built at the start of the 20^th century in Xujiahui district. Considered to be the largest cathedral in the Far East and is a perfect example of the western influence on China during the 19^th and 20^th century (although to be more exact this influence extends back to the 16^th century under the guise of the conversion efforts of the incredibly active missionary Matteo Ricci).

The church was used as a granary during the Cultural Revolution. It can also be seen in the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s movie “Empire of the Sun”.

We will then visit the Confucius Temple, thought of as the father of “Chinese humanism”. “Master Kong”, to use his real name (Confucius is the Latinised version), was around during the 6^th century BC (even before the birth of Buddhism in India and Plato’s theories in Ancient Greece). Over his life he developed a social and political philosophy that redefined and hierarchized human relations through a complex system of rituals that was widely enforced right until the 20^th century. During this time Confucianism was the cement holding Chinese society together, and the influence of Confucius is again resurfacing in modern day China.

Our next visit will be to the City God Temple of Shanghai, and we hope to give you a basic and superficial introduction to one of the most complex religions in the world: Taoism.

A blend of ancient popular beliefs, Taoism is at once linked to animism and to Dao, or the “Universal Way” if you wish to give a basic definition, a precept developed by the sage Laozi. The universe is governed by the perpetual interaction between and mixing of Yin (representing moon, female and night) and Yang (representing sun, man and day), and these interactions should not be disturbed (the principal of “Wuwei” or “the action of non-action”).

Your day will finish by visiting the ancient Ohel Moishe synagogue, founded in 1927 by Russian Jews in the heart of the old Shanghai Ghetto. The Hongkou area in the North-East of the city was used a refuge by nearly 20,000 Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing Nazi barbarism. In the synagogue you will have the opportunity to visit the Museum dedicated to the Jewish refugees of Shanghai.

If there are any children on the trip, we invite them to take part in our activity of taking photographs of each of the symbols and buildings representing the 5 religions or philosophies that we have seen and visited during the day.

If there are any children on the trip, we invite them to take part in our activity of taking photographs of each of the symbols and buildings representing the 5 religions or philosophies that we have seen and visited during the day.