One week in Shanghai — here's exactly how to spend every single day Shanghai moves fast. The type of city where you are offered a Huangpu River gust in one hand, a steaming xiaolongbao in the other, and an unmistakably rendered skyline shattering glass ceilings with its unrealism. It is hard to breathe here and seven days should give you that time. You're not there to run around between monuments, to tick boxes, but to feel the life in the city. While many travelers will cram Shanghai into two or three days before leaving wondering why the city didn't connect with them, A whole week is required to unmask the layers: the colonial buildings camouflaged behind glass towers, house set along canals only an hour from downtown and wet markets snuggled into alleys most tourists will never discover. Shanghai Itinerary 7 days covers it all, day by day without wasting a minute. Stay on your first day here.Direct yourself in front of the futuristic Pudong skyline along the Huangpu River, a mile-long waterfront promenade lined with colonial, techno-European houses Go at dusk. It is one of those travel experiences you really remember twenty years later, from golden afternoon light to full neon prevails in the river. Have dinner in one of the riverside restaurants and let the city grow upon you. Tomorrow the real exploration begins. Day 1 highlights: The Bund, a waterfront promenade at sunset Dinner with Pudong skyline views Night Walk on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street Start your morning at You Garden, a four-hundred-year-old classical Chinese garden hidden within the wreath heart of the ancient metropolis. Pavilions, rocks, koi ponds and crack walls form a universe completely independent of the skyscrapers of the past. Go before 9am to stay away from the crowds.. Adjacent to the City God Temple is a hectic and delightful bazaar, street food, silk threads, jade in a thousand colors with stores selling sky-high pythons, glassy blue lizards and best soup dumplings on earth. Afternoons. There is truly no neighborhood like it in China. The boulevards are lined with trees and there are art deco mansions, independent coffee shops, and boutiques interspersed along streets that simultaneously feel somewhere in Europe while being so obviously Shanghainese. Walk Wukang Road. Stop for coffee. Take your time. The streets of this city have stories to tell, and you can see what those are through a dedicated French Quarter Walking Tour by Catherine Lu Tours, all the architectural details, the historical figures, and a neighborhood that has a curious colonial past. Worth every minute. Cross the river to Pudong and get ready for high rise. 632 m → Shanghai Tower (China's tallest building, and the second oldest in the world). The observation deck on the 118th floor provides a 360-degree view of the space that recontextualizes everything about Utah. You can see further than the eye generally allows you to on a clear day. It is utterly disturbing in the first-class sense possible. And the contrast between the glass and metal borders of Pudong this afternoon at the Jade Buddha Temple, an energetic Buddhist monastery with Burmese jade Buddha statues built in 1882, and this peaceful, fragrant forest containing the pivotal battle of Shanghai. Antiques and ultramodernity combined, within the same city block. And out of the city, this is what will upgrade a good Shanghai week to a great one, at least for one day. About forty-five minutes from downtown Shanghai is Zhujiajiao, a lake town of the Ming Qing Dynasty. Even for Kake, who got to watch those locals sell their bamboo steamed sticky rice cakes right there on the waterfront. Really, really old, and charming as hell, but also really worth the effort. For both the juxtaposition with metropolitan Shanghaï makes them appear somehow all the livelier by comparison. The Zhujiajiao Water Town and French Concession city tour, seamlessly blended into one private day with the wise selection by Catherine Lu Tours that saves every precious hour of the day. Suzhou is just an hour away from Shanghai by high-speed train, a city whose classical gardens are so defining, nine were nominated as World Heritage listed sites by UNESCO. Shanghai culture, undoubtedly replete with its exacting modernity, shows little of this side of Chinese aesthetic refinement that can be found gleaming in the ancient stones around the Panmen Gate complex, and floating serenely over the pond at both The Garden of the Master of Nets and Humble Administrator's Garden. With its network of canals, Suzhou has also earned the nickname "Venice of the East," a nomenclature the locals will politely contend with Venice is really just the Suzhou of the West fair point. Also the immortal song atmosphere from the nearby Tongli lake town is described, to upload more flavor in an already magnificent time A whole week can easily be spent alone in Hangzhou, which is about an hour away via bullet train from Shanghai. But for an afternoon experience, Far West Lake takes center stage, a 600-acre freshwater lake, lined with willow bushes, pagodas and arched bridges, inscribed through a UNESCO World Heritage Site and inspiring Chinese poets and painters through it for more than a thousand years. And you have to wonder why, the scene by the lake in the morning mist. Some of China's best green tea comes from Longjing tea plantations which are nearby. This is the stuff of authentic experience that no guidebook can quite capture, setting out between the terraced rows as a local farmer explains the harvest process. See all three with a private day tour to Hangzhou with Catherine Lu Tours around West Lake, the Feilaifeng & Lingyin Temple complex and also visit a tea plantation in one perfectly timed private itinerary. Reserve day seven for the things that go better with slowness. Longhua temple, which takes the title of Shanghai's largest and oldest buddhist temple complex, sits quietly in the part of the metropolis that has most of the traffic totally above the form. The seven-story pagoda, incense-scented courtyards and resident priests create a sense of authentic tranquility that seems to be on another planet from the buzz of the Bund . Engage in the late morning at a nearby market, specifically one Catherine Lu Tours guides are well suited to animate. Navigation apps and translation tools are a must. Use WiFi in hotels, but not just that. Sign up for local SIM or pocket WiFi. Use the metro. Shanghai subway: This is a new and fast transportation system that is extremely cheap, clean and goes almost anywhere on your itinerary. Book day trips in advance. Suzhou and Hangzhou are popular. However, private tour slots with Catherine Lu Tours book up -d in particular on weekends and Chinese holidays. Carry some cash. Shanghai where mobile payments are ruling the day but you can't use foreign cards here. God Market Temple Street food keep Chinese Yuans Eat everything. Soupy Xiaolongbao, steamy Shanghai (pan-fried pork buns), silky sliced-up salad hong shao rou (red-braised pork belly), Shanghai's food identity is beautiful and each neighborhood has its rendition of the classics. It takes some serious work to plan a Shanghai itinerary 7 days from scratch. Transport coordination, ticket bookings, restaurants for lunch and dinners to head back after day trips, it adds up. For this kind of local expertise that can only be gained from guiding millions through this city over the years, turn to Catherine Lu Tours. You dictate your preferred pace and interests, so their private Shanghai tours are entirely flexible, they can be either guided throughout all seven days or just provisioned during crucial times with expert assistance throughout. No group tours. No rushed schedules. Just Shanghai, done properly. Shanghai Itinerary 7 Days is not a trip. It is a total immersion into one of the most nuanced, paradoxical and simply entrancing cities in the world. You see a contemporary cityscape and find thousands-year-old temples, water towns and jade gardens — all of this within an hour from those glass towers mirroring the Huangpu River in the night. That's famously the nature of a perfect Shanghai Itinerary 7 Days. it presents you with both faces of the city. The one looking to the future at full belt and the other quietly tending its classical gardens and canal villages as if the 21st century is still weighing up whether or not to knock? Each day in this itinerary is a continuation of the previous. The Bund orients you. The French Concession seduces you. Suzhou and Hangzhou show you a very different side of Chinese culture and beauty that you might have some preconceptions about. And on day seven wandering a wet market with a steaming pork bun in hand, no purpose, and nowhere to be Shanghai stops being a place you came to visit and starts morphing into your new hometown. Shanghai has years of experience in hosting international travelers and cider maker, Catherine Lu Tours. Is 7 days enough to visit the beautiful city of Shanghai? If you ask me, a 7-day Shanghai itinerary is actually the sweet spot. This allows time to see the main places in the heart of Shanghai. The Bund, Yu Garden and tour around the French Concession vicinity—but also some day trip options to Suzhou, Hangzhou or ancient water towns. A mere two or three days is hardly enough. Seven days allows Shanghai to truly show up. Which sights should not be missed on your 7-day Shanghai itinerary? Big-price-price-tag details: Bund, Yu Garden, East French Concession, Shanghai Tower Note deck and Jade Buddha Temple are desirable throughout a day to Zhujiajiao Water City, Suzhou, Classical Garden, West Lake in Hangzhou Day Trips from Shanghai while you stay for 7 Days at the city Absolutely. Suzhou & Hangzhou are about an hour apart via high-speed train and two of China's loveliest cities. Only 45min from downtown, Zhujiajiao Water Town Including at least two excursions in your 7-day Shanghai itinerary deepens the experience immensely, and prevents one from making the common mistake of spending all seven days in the urban core. Where to stay in Shanghai for 7 days? The Bund area also is fine if you want very direct waterfront access. Shanghai has such an effective metro system that there aren't many deal-breakers on location as you can get to anywhere you want relatively easily, regardless of where you're staying.
Shanghai Itinerary 7 Days
Day 1: Arriving at The Bund — Initial Impressions That Punch Hard
Welcome To The Dramatics Skyline
Day 2 Yu Garden/Old Town & The French Concession
Old Shanghai Meets Colonial Elegance
Former French Concession:
Day 3: Pudong-skyline; Shanghai Tower and Jade Buddha Temple
Going Up — Literally
Day-4: Day trip to Zhujiajiao Water Town
1 hour outside the city, Ancient Canals
Day 5: Suzhou Day Trip — The City Of Gardens
China's Most Beautiful Classical Gardens
Day 6: Hangzhou — Day trip to the western lake and tea plantations
The city that Marco Polo called the greatest in his world
Day 7: Longhua Temple, Local Markets & Goodbye Shanghai
Savor the Last Day Then, Slow Down
Shanghai Itinerary 7-Day at a Glance
How to Make the Most of Your Shanghai Week
Metro APP
Customize Your Ideal Shanghai Week with Catherine Lu Tours
Conclusion:
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