Shanghai Travel Guide

For the cheapest flights to Shanghai in China, Traveller's Discounts UK recommends Virgin Atlantic which flies direct to Shanghai daily from London. KLM - Royal Dutch Airlines, and Air France also have super cheap deals to Shanghai. Before you book don't forget to get quotes from Lastminute.com, Expedia UK and Thomas Cook. They have excellent price comparison engines on flights to Shanghai covering a huge choice of competing airlines departing from major UK airports.

Accommodation
With some of the priciest real estate in the country Shanghai has few budget beds available to foreigners. There is a plethora however, of mid-range reasonable value accommodation and a selection of stunning five star hotels. Hotels catering to the business traveller are clustered around Hongqiao and Pudong and tourist-focused ones in the Bund and Nanjing Lu. For best deals on Shanghai hotel bookings, visit Traveller's Discounts HotelClub - the web's best online hotel reservation service. For the cheapest deals on budget Shanghai hotel and hostel bookings, visit Traveller's Discounts Hostel Bookings - the web's best online budget hotel and hostel reservation service.

Shanghai Hotel Bookings
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Halfway between Hong Kong in the south and Beijing in the north, Shanghai sits on a stubby peninsula that juts into the East China Sea. It sprawls along the Huangpu River and its name, literally “on the sea” recognises its past as a maritime city that has long been mainland China's link to the rest of the world. It has a colonial heritage still prominent in areas like the Bund and the French Concession but is also interlaced with numerous other frequent reminders of its international legacy. While being pleasant features that provide a familiar backdrop for visitors it has turned a laser-like focus on the future and since 1990 has exploded into China's can-do financial and commercial capital. An entire new city annexe is rising from the swamps across the river from old Shanghai and with a voracious appetite for everything at the cutting-edge of the 21st century the city stands as a beacon for the developing potential now rising in the People's Republic. Business people will be swept up in its obsession with making deals and manufacturing wealth and tourists will be entranced by the dynamic whirlwind of this Manhattan of the east. Rich history, cultural showstoppers, economic dynamo and architectural incubator are all layers of a city that swirls with a pulsing humanity both holding it together and driving it forward.

Shanghai Airport
Shanghai is served by two international airports (the only Chinese city to have more than one). The oldest is Hongqiao in the city's west 18km from the Bund but most international flights have now moved to the recently-opened Pudong Airport. Pudong is 30km south-east of the city near the East China Sea. They are both on (almost) opposite sides of Shanghai's sprawl and ground transport between the airports takes at least an hour (allow two hours minimum if you have connecting flights. There are bus shuttles and taxis are around Y180 between the two. Between the city centre and the airports there are also bus services with taxis costing about Y60 from Hongqiao and Y170 from Pudong. From Pudong you can also catch a Maglev train (top speed 275km) that makes the seven minute journey to a suburban rail station (Longyan Lu).

Sightseeing Highlights
Shanghai’s rich cosmopolitan past is magnificently embodied by the Bund (Zhongshan Rd). A 2km gracefully curving stretch of grand 19th century European architecture hugging the Huangpu River and affording spectacular views of its gleaming new 21st century counterpart rising rapidly on the opposite bank in Pudong. The striking contrast is a compelling starting point for the visitor to experience the majestic history of the city and its exploding future in a single gaze. The Bund (an Indian word meaning embankment) was originally a towpath used to pull barges and until a few years ago was very close to the water until the road was widened a few years ago. Its northern point is marked the Shanghai Mansions, a 1934 apartment block used as the Japanese HQ during WWII, the Russian Consulate and the Pujiang Hotel. Head south across the Garden Bridge over the Suzhou Creek and you can take in a string of superb 1800’s/early 1900’s architecture including the buildings that used to be the British Consulate, the Glen Line Building, the Jardine Matheson HQ, the Cathay Hotel, the Chartered Bank of India, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the China Merchants Bank and at its southern point the Asiatic Petroleum Building.

You can take a less linear walking route through the French Concession which sprawls south-west of the Bund past Renmin Park. It takes its name from the grand boulevards and French-inspired architecture of the area but was actually home to more British, Russians and Americans than French. A leisurely stroll through the district will reward you with a strange sense of familiar Europeaness woven through with Eastern threads. The area reeks of the history associated with the city’s pivotal role as a portal into China and its domestic political influence. See Russian and English churches, residences used by Sun Yat Sen and Zhou Enlai as well as its foreign entrepreneurs, writers and adventurers. Its modern focus has now turned to cool cafes and restaurants, ritzy shopping and a buzzing nightlife.

While the Bund and the French Concession are a hangover from colonial days you can soak up indigenous Shanghai by wandering the Old Town. A good starting point is Yuyuan Gardens from where you can soak in bustling streets and tiny alleys, shops and vibrant markets, places of worship and museums and witness the locals going about the business of everyday life. There’s an interesting collection of traditional inns along Fangbang Lu near which is a lively fruit and vegetable market and the Dajingge Pavillion – containing a 50m preserved section of the old city walls that once stretched for 5km. South-west of here are a couple of interesting markets: the Dongtai Lu Antique Market with stalls and shops overflowing with all manner of statues, furnishings, vases as well as communist-era memorabilia and nostalgic photos and prints of old Shanghai; and the Flower and Bird Market with its colourful displays of flora and fauna. There are also several religious places of interest reflecting the city’s cosmopolitan past: the Confucian temple, the Baiyun Taoist Temple, Dongjiadu Church and the West Shanghai Mosque.

The city has a wonderful collection of museums showcasing the grand sweep of Chinese history, exquisite works of art and some quirky insights into the national character. The king of them all is the Shanghai Museum in Renmin Square. You could easily spend a day perusing the beautifully showcased exhibits including ancient bronzes, sculpture, calligraphy, painting, ceramics, coins, furniture and a gallery given over to art and crafts from China’s minority cultures. The Shanghai Art Museum has recently moved to a beautiful heritage building that was once a racecourse club. It has 12 exhibition halls with themes from modern to traditional Shanghainese supplemented by a regularly rotating series of temporary shows. The Shanghai Museum of Natural History has a fascinating collection but displayed in a somewhat shabby building that is need of modernising. Nevertheless, the fauna and anthropology exhibits are worth a look and include dinosaur skeletons, woolly mammoths, pandas, alligators and Chinese mummies. To see the rich history of traditional Chinese crafts such as paperwork, lacquer, embroidery, jade and lanterns see the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Research Institute. A more specialised collection can be seen at the Museum of Public Security which holds all manner of firearms, evidence taken from murder scenes, modern crime fighting technology and a recreation of old Shanghai complete with cobbled floor and eerie street lamps.

As impressive as the ellipse of the Bund is in harking back to Shanghai’s past the ultra-modern forest of skyscrapers sprouting on the eastern bank of the river in the Pudong district is even more breathtaking. Several of these structures afford magnificent views over the city as well as being architectural gems in their own right. The most original is the 468m Oriental Pearl Tower made up of a tripod base supporting a needle-like shaft intersected by two large and several smaller coloured spheres (the pearls). There are several viewing options (the higher you go the more you pay) and the tower’s facilities include a revolving restaurant, a shopping mall, discos, ascience fantasy city, the Municipal History Museum and a boutique hotel. More elegant in its simplicity is the 88 floor Jinmao Tower used as an office block with the Grand Hyatt taking over the 54th-87th floors. The top floor has an observation deck and in the building next to the tower has a food court and an exhibition detailing the astonishing construction process.

Given its vast, sprawling scale Shanghai has a large number of worthwhile attractions but they do require some logistical planning to get to. To really experience a sense of the mass of humanity that makes up the city take a walk down Nanjing Lu on a weekend. It’s a 2km long shopping strip that starts about halfway up the Bund heading east-west and can have up to 1.7 million people a day pass through. Fuxing Park is one of the city’s most lovely. A green, leafy preserve built by the French in 1909 it’s a great way to catch your breath and see musicians, tai chi practitioners and locals relaxing. The Jade Buddha Temple has several large halls with a number of interesting statues and nearby shops that supply religious paraphernalia. Not on par with say, the Singapore Zoo, the Shanghai Zoo still has a reasonable selection of animals with the highlight being Chinese natives such as the red and giant pandas and golden monkeys. Ceramics fanciers will enjoy the Jingdezhen Ceramics Gallery featuring thousands of items including Song Dynasty pieces a giant vase and even cups and saucers made into dragons.