Four days in Shanghai, on foot

9 November 2026 · itinerarywalking

Shanghai is really two cities pressed against each other across a river: the low, leafy, lane-house Puxi on the west bank, and the vertical glass of Pudong on the east. Four days is enough to walk both without spending your trip underground.

The rule I keep to: pick one side of the river per day, and never take a taxi between sights that are two metro stops apart.

Day one — the river, then the old city

Start on the Bund early, before the tour buses. The promenade runs roughly a kilometre from the Yan'an East Road end to the Waibaidu Bridge, colonial facades on one side and the Pudong skyline on the other. Walk it north to south, then cut inland to Nanjing Road and keep going until the pedestrian stretch begins.

By late morning you are at People's Square, which is really a cluster: the Shanghai Museum's original building, the urban planning exhibition hall, and a lot of benches. Pick one museum, not three.

Spend the afternoon in the old city around Yu Garden — a Ming-dynasty classical garden built by a Ming official for his parents, all rockeries, ponds and zigzag bridges — and the bazaar lanes that surround it. It is busy and unapologetically commercial, and still worth an hour inside the garden walls.

Finish with dinner on Yunnan Road, a short walk north-west of People's Square, where old snack restaurants sit shoulder to shoulder.

Day two — the former French Concession

This is the day to leave the map in your pocket. Start at the Wukang Building, the wedge-shaped 1924 apartment block on Wukang Road, then walk east through the plane-tree streets: Wukang, Anfu, Fumin, Changle. Art Deco apartments, converted lane houses, small galleries, and a density of cafés that borders on unreasonable.

Allow three or four hours with no fixed target. If you want one anchor, make it Tianzifang off Taikang Road — a warren of shikumen lanes turned into studios and shops — or the polished Xintiandi district, which is the same idea with better lighting and higher prices.

In the evening, cross to the Bund again. It is a different place after dark, and the Pudong towers are lit until late.

Day three — Pudong, from the top and the bottom

Take the metro under the river to Lujiazui. Go up something: the Shanghai Tower observation deck on the 118th floor is the calmest of the big three, and the lift is absurdly fast. Go an hour before sunset and stay for the lights coming on.

Then come back down to ground level and take the ferry across to the Bund rather than the metro — it costs about the same as a bus ticket, takes ten minutes, and gives you the skyline from the water. There is also a sightseeing tunnel under the river; it is a tourist attraction in its own right, not transport.

If museums are your thing, the Shanghai Museum East on Century Avenue now holds much of the collection, with the People's Square building still in use. Check which is open before you commit.

Day four — pick one direction out of town

Either a water town (Zhujiajiao, on Metro Line 17, is the easiest), or a train to Suzhou or Hangzhou. Details are in the day-trip post. If you would rather stay in the city, take M50 on Moganshan Road — a former textile mill now full of galleries — plus Jing'an Temple and Longhua Temple, the city's oldest Buddhist complex, with its seven-storey octagonal pagoda.

Practical notes