Private Tours
“Best tours to take in Shanghai” — Culture Trip
“50 Reasons why Shanghai is the World’s Greatest City – #28: Historic Shanghai” — CNN
Historic Shanghai’s private & custom tours take you into the incredible world of Old Shanghai: the history, the architecture, the stories, the characters. You pick the date, the tour, and your group.
A private tour is ideal for visiting friends and colleagues, orientations, team-building outings, and school trips – and it makes for unique birthday and farewell celebrations, too!
Over the past 25 years, Historic Shanghai walking tours have been taken by celebrities, political leaders and television personalities. Our most popular tours are listed below, and we can customize a tour especially for your needs.
Looking for the traces of a family member who lived in pre-1949 Shanghai? We can research and tailor a walking tour around that, too.
The Details:
Prices start at RMB 3,500 for 2 people.
Duration: 2.5 hours
Tours: Select from one of the classics below, or let us know what you’d like to see
Contact us for a quotation with your group size, dates, and tour preferences!
For inquiries and bookings: info@historic-shanghai.com
CLASSIC HISTORIC SHANGHAI WALKS
The Bund and Beyond
Shanghai’s most famous boulevard is jam-packed with stunning buildings and fascinating stories – and even more so on the surrounding streets. This tour explores the neighborhood in and around what was once “Shanghai’s Wall Street”, the tales of tycoons who financed it, the architects who designed it, and the stories of the people who lived worked here. We’ll visit stately buildings and quiet residential lanes, for a slice of Shanghai life.
The Former French Concession
Explore the legacy of the French in old Shanghai in this exploration of the city’s most charming neighborhoods. Stroll the plane tree shaded streets, lined with grand mansions and Art Deco apartment houses; historic schools and churches, cafes and boutiques, and hear the tales of how these buildings came to be, who lived in them then and who lives in them now, and stories of fame, fortune, tragedy and scandal!
Bubbling Well Road
This stroll takes in the magnificent historic buildings in and around the charmingly named Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing West Road). Discover the treasures of the days when this was one of the city’s most glamorous addresses: from the city’s swankiest nightclub of yore, to a spectacular Art Deco mansion with a dark past, a modernist masterpiece of a theater, a resident ghost in an old police building, the streamlined apartment building that housed a famous, tragic writer – and so much more!
A Tale of Three Cities
Old Shanghai wasn’t just one city. What made Shanghai so special was that she was a cosmopolitan brew of three distinct cities – Chinese, French, and British/American. This unique walk crosses three borders to take us through all of them: From the grand edifices of commerce on the Bund, to the secrets hidden in the alleys of the old Chinese city and the unique architecture and raucous history of the original French Concession.
Old City Temples
Although much of Shanghai’s Old Chinese City is being demolished, there are still pockets of tradition -like the Old City’s charming temples. These gorgeous houses of worship have served Shanghai’s oldest communities for centuries, and people still come to light incense and send up prayers for health, wealth, and happiness. We’ll visit nunneries, Taoist and Buddhist temples, and meander along the lanes in the neighborhoods they served, and see the transformation and regeneration of the Old City.
Discover Shanghai Art Deco
Shanghai has a rich cache of Art Deco architecture in a dazzling array of styles: mansions to apartments, Shanghai lanehouses – even a lost Chinese Art Deco city. Come and see the city’s finest Art Deco treasures, and find out why Art Deco resonated so much with Shanghai then – and why it has had a 21st century revival. Who better to guide you than the group that hosted the World Congress on Art Deco Shanghai in 2015?
Shanghai’s Jewish Ghetto
On this tour, we tell the story of the ‘Shanghai Jews’ who fled Hitler’s Europe for the only port open to them: Shanghai. We’ll visit the the excellent Jewish Refugee Museum, and the landmarks of the old refugee neighborhood. Extension: we can cover the larger story of Shanghai’s Jewish heritage from the 1850s onwards on an extended tour. This will include the story of the wealthy Sephardic Jewish families from Baghdad who built fortunes, and the Russian Jewish refugees from Stalin’s pogroms who brought Shanghai culture and the arts.
Jesuits of Siccawei
A walk in the former Jesuit enclave of Xujiahui, where the church, library, observatory, seminary and orphanage still stand as a legacy of this Catholic order whose influence is still felt today, in science, western art, education, and religion.
THEMED TOURS – A Sampling
The Historic Shanghai Scavenger Hunt – Explore Old Shanghai in a whole new way with the Historic Shanghai Scavenger Hunt! On the plane-tree lined avenues of the former French Concession, you’ll follow a series of clues that will take you into winding lilongs, quiet backstreets, historic parks and landmark Art Deco buildings to discover secrets and treasures hidden in plain sight: with each question, you’ll see something cool or uncover a new fun fact about Old Shanghai.
Vintage Cocktail/Wine Walks – Start a historic walk with a vintage cocktail from an Old Shanghai recipe, and end the walk with a glass of wine.
Empire of the Sun (book/film-themed) – visit the sites in the award-winning JG Ballard novel, made famous by the Steven Spielberg film, set in shanghai.
Vintage Bakeries Walk – A walk and tasting through Shanghai’s tradition of European pastries
Morning Shanghai – An early morning walk and street food sampling that takes us through the traditions and culture of Shanghai, from tai-chi masters to caged songbirds in the parks, to the stories behind the buildings of the former French Concession, and one of the last breakfast street food venues in the city.
Contact us at info@historic-shanghai.com
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