Shanghai上海 · Shànghǎi

Shanghai gives you two skylines in one glance: on the Bund, a mile of 1920s banks and trading houses in stone and copper; across the Huangpu, the Pudong towers rising like a science-fiction set. Between them runs a city that rewards walking more than any other in China — art-deco apartment blocks and plane-tree lanes in the old French Concession, shikumen alleys turned into bars and studios, coffee roasters on every third corner.

Give it three days for the Bund, the old lanes, a great museum and a soup-dumpling crawl; five if you want to fold in the Jiangnan classics — Suzhou's gardens, Hangzhou's West Lake, a canal town like Zhujiajiao. It is the softest landing in the country: the most English, the best signage, and a food scene that runs from morning rice rolls to Michelin dining without losing the local canon.

Shanghai's best months are late April–May and September–November — warm, clear and made for walking. Dodge the plum rains (梅雨) of mid-June to early July, when it drizzles for weeks, and the hot, sticky peak of July–August. Winters are raw and damp rather than snowy, and the wettest single month is June.

Shanghai wears its history as texture. The lilong and shikumen lanes — terraces of brick row houses built in the concession era — are where daily life still happens: laundry strung between plane trees, a barber working the pavement, a wet market humming by 7 a.m. Layered over that is one of Asia's most self-assured coffee-and-design scenes, so a single block can hold a 1930s apartment, a specialty roaster and a concept store.

The city is proud, particular and a little vain in the best way. Spend an evening the local way: a walk along the Wukang Road corner at golden hour, dumplings in a lane, and a rooftop for the skyline after dark.