Guided tours in Shanghai and across China
Private tours in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, the water towns and across China. Every tour is shaped around your interests and pace, combining history, culture, food and everyday life.
Shanghai
Shanghai is a city of contrasts, where history and the future exist side by side. In less than two centuries it grew from an important port into one of the world’s great economic and cultural centres. Its position at the mouth of the Yangtze made it a gateway between China and the world, leaving the city with an extraordinary blend of Chinese and international influences.
Two stories of the city face one another across the Huangpu River: the Bund, with its impressive early-twentieth-century European buildings, and Pudong’s futuristic skyline, a symbol of modern China’s rapid growth. Yet Shanghai is more than skyscrapers and broad avenues. Between the towers are longtang lanes, shikumen houses, markets, temples, parks and established neighbourhoods where the everyday life of local residents comes into view.
A tour of the city brings together architecture, food, art and history, as well as local culture and Shanghai’s distinctive rhythm. Between tea and dim sum, traditional gardens, contemporary galleries and lively streets, a city emerges that never stops changing yet still holds on to its memories and unique character.
Jewish Shanghai — communities, refuge and memory
Jewish Shanghai has several distinct chapters, connecting trade, migration and refuge. Its story began in the mid-nineteenth century, when Jewish merchants from Baghdad and Bombay arrived as the port and international trade expanded. Families such as the Sassoons and Kadoories played important roles in Shanghai’s economy, property development and philanthropy, and established community institutions and synagogues.
In the early twentieth century they were joined by Jews from Russia, many fleeing revolution and political upheaval. They settled mainly in Hongkou and built an active community of synagogues, schools, clubs, shops and newspapers.
The best-known and most moving chapter began in the late 1930s, when around 20,000 European Jews escaping Nazi persecution reached Shanghai, one of the few places they could enter without a visa. In 1943, the Japanese occupation authorities ordered many stateless refugees into the ‘Designated Area’ in Hongkou. Despite overcrowding, poverty and wartime conditions, they created places of worship, schools, cafés, businesses and cultural institutions, living alongside the neighbourhood’s Chinese residents until the war ended.
Many traces of Jewish Shanghai can still be found across the city today, from synagogues and buildings used by the communities to the grand properties built by Jewish business families. It is an extraordinary story of community, survival and the meeting of Jewish history with one of the most turbulent periods in Shanghai’s past.
Suzhou
Suzhou is a city of gardens, water, silk and poetry. Founded more than 2,500 years ago, it was the capital of the State of Wu and grew into an important centre of trade, culture and art in the Yangtze River Delta. Its canals, stone bridges and white houses with dark tiled roofs give the old city the appearance of a traditional Chinese painting.
The classical gardens are Suzhou’s heart. Behind plain walls lie complete worlds made of rock, water, plants, pavilions and winding passages. Every window frames a different picture, every bridge changes the point of view, and every detail is designed to create harmony between nature, architecture and people. Nine of the city’s gardens are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Water accompanies Suzhou throughout the city. Canals cross the old quarters and connect with China’s Grand Canal, which brought goods, travellers and ideas here for generations. Along the waterside streets are old homes, steps descending to the canals and boats passing beneath arched bridges.
Suzhou is also known for its long traditions of sericulture, weaving and delicate embroidery. Alongside silk, the city cultivated poetry, painting, calligraphy and pingtan, a local art of storytelling and song accompanied by stringed instruments.
A tour reveals a place where aesthetics are not confined to museums, but live in the gardens, homes, streets and the way the city tells its story.
Hangzhou
Hangzhou is a city where landscape, culture and history blend into one another. At its heart is West Lake, surrounded by a landscape of causeways, bridges, islands, pavilions and pagodas shaped over centuries. Willows touch the water, green hills encircle the lake and every season gives it a different appearance. This scenery influenced generations of poets, painters and garden designers across East Asia and is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In the twelfth century Hangzhou, then known as Lin’an, became the capital of the Southern Song dynasty and one of the world’s largest and most prosperous cities. Its imperial palace, markets, teahouses and temples attracted merchants, scholars and artists. The Grand Canal, linking northern and southern China, also helped establish it as a centre of trade and culture.
The hills west of the lake produce Longjing, or ‘Dragon Well’, one of China’s best-known green teas. Among the plantations and villages, visitors can discover traditions of cultivation, picking and hand-roasting passed down through generations. Nearby are Lingyin Temple, caves filled with Buddhist sculptures and wooded valleys that keep nature within easy reach of the city.
A tour of Hangzhou moves between the lake’s quiet scenery and old streets, temples, teahouses and modern neighbourhoods. Here nature is not simply a backdrop, but part of the city’s history, culture and everyday life.
The water towns
Jiangnan’s water towns offer a slower, more intimate day. Along their narrow canals stand stone and timber buildings, arched bridges and traditional homes whose white walls and dark roofs are reflected in the water. Small boats pass old wharves, family-run shops, teahouses and local markets, recalling a time when the canals were the towns’ main streets.
Travelling by boat and walking beside the water offer a pause from the pace of the big cities. Behind the picturesque streets is everyday life: laundry hanging above a canal, residents sitting outside their homes, aromas drifting from kitchens and craftspeople continuing local traditions. It is a relaxed encounter with the landscape, architecture and culture south of the Yangtze.