Ten days in China: Two imperial capitals and one city that invented itself

The gate with the portrait on it, and the last survivor of the four that once led into the Imperial City. Walking underneath costs nothing; the balcony costs a little and gives you the length of the square.

A Ming dynasty shopping street south of the square, burned in 1900 and rebuilt as a shopping street again. The main drag is touristy; the lanes running off it, with their old pharmacy signs, are not.

Stalls of Beijing snacks a short walk from the square. Graze rather than sit down, and treat it as a first look at what the city eats.

Through the Meridian Gate the courtyards open out one after another, each grander than the last, until three ceremonial halls appear on a tiered marble terrace. Behind them the scale drops to bedchambers and studies, among them the room where the Empress Dowager Cixi ruled China from behind a curtain for forty seven years. The halls are viewed from their doorways rather than entered.

A walled palace within the palace, built for the Qianlong Emperor to retire into and never used by him, with a nine dragon screen in glazed tile at the entrance. The halls behind it hold the Palace Museum's gold and jade, a set of ancient drum shaped stone carvings and an open air theatre. Separate ticket, and it stands in the northeastern corner on the way to the north gate.

The artificial hill opposite the north gate, raised from the earth dug out of the palace moat. Ten minutes of steps for the only view that shows the Forbidden City whole, a sea of yellow roofs with the city stacked behind it.

A restored section along a green ridge northeast of the city, with battlements on both sides and far fewer people on it than Badaling. Cable car up, walk east until the restoration stops, toboggan down.

Ghost Street, a kilometre of red lanterns and restaurants that does not get going until other places are closing. Crayfish in season, hotpot all year, and queues outside the good places at eleven at night.

An imperial altar complex in the greenest park in Beijing, where emperors came once a year to ask for a good harvest. Go into the park at seven for the morning crowd, then buy the through ticket when the buildings open.

Two towers facing each other across a small square, built to mark the hours for a city with no clocks. Drum performances most hours, and a rooftop view over grey tiles in every direction.

Three connected lakes just west of the drum tower, ringed by willows, and the best evening walk in Beijing. The north shore is quiet and residential; the south end turns into bars after dark.

About four and three quarter hours on a G train. Arrive at the station forty minutes early for security and the passport check, and do not cut the boarding gate fine.

The exact centre of the old city, on a traffic island reached by an underpass, with ancient bells inside and short performances through the day. The rooftop gallery gives you the four roads running out to the four gates.

A dense grid of alleys behind the Drum Tower where the Hui community has lived and cooked for centuries. Lamb, cumin, hand pulled noodles and flatbread torn into soup. Come hungry and buy small things from several places.

Three excavated pits under aircraft hangars, holding around eight thousand figures, a hundred chariots and forty thousand bronze weapons, all for one emperor's afterlife. Pit One first, at opening, and hire the audio guide.

The burial mound of Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of a unified China, still sealed after two thousand years. A shuttle runs from the warriors on the same ticket. There is not much to see, and that is rather the point.

Twelve metres high, wide enough on top to cycle four abreast, and unbroken for nearly fourteen kilometres around the old city. Bikes are hired at the gates by the hour; the full loop takes about two hours at a wander.

Roughly six hours, the longest leg of the trip. Take the earliest service you can face; food on board is dull, so buy something at the station.

The garden at the northern tip of the Bund, where Suzhou Creek meets the Huangpu, with a small museum of the waterfront inside. The view south down the whole curve is the one to arrive at first.

The grandest thing on the Bund, built for the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in 1923 and now a Chinese bank. Walk into the lobby, which nobody stops you doing, and look up at the mosaic dome that was plastered over during the Cultural Revolution and found intact in 1997.

A Ming scholar's garden of rockeries, ponds and dragon-topped walls, laid out in the 1550s and squeezed into two hectares in the middle of the old city. Buy the ticket online and go at opening.

The Taoist temple the old city grew around, still working, and surrounded by the busiest snack streets in Shanghai. Come out of the garden into it and eat your way along.

The queues by the temple are for xiaolongbao. Pick the one full of local families rather than the one with the English menu, and let them cool before you bite.

A grey brick terrace house in Xintiandi where thirteen delegates founded the Communist Party in July 1921, now a museum with the meeting room laid out as it was. Free, small, and strange to visit inside a luxury shopping district.

Free, and one of the great museums of China. Skip most of it and give the ground floor bronzes a proper hour, then the ceramics upstairs. The building is shaped like the three legged ritual vessel the collection is built around.

The commuter ferry from the Bund to Pudong, two yuan, fifteen minutes, still used by people going to work. Board at the Jinling East Road wharf and stand outside.

China's tallest building, twisting through 120 degrees over 632 metres, with the observation deck on the 118th floor. Book a timed slot. On a clear evening you can see the river bend twice and the airport beyond it.

Laid out by the French in 1909 and still arranged like a Paris park, with formal beds and gravel walks. Come between seven and nine for the dancing, the card games and the tai chi, which is the reason to be here.

A wedge of French Renaissance flats from 1924, built where two roads meet at a sharp angle, and the most photographed corner in Shanghai. The walk to it along Wukang Road, past low villas and coffee shops, is the actual attraction.