Who Nanjing is for
Nanjing was the capital of China under six dynasties, and again under the Republic until 1937. It has the most complete surviving city wall in China, an imperial tomb complex that set the pattern for the Ming tombs in Beijing, and a body of twentieth-century history that very few other Chinese cities carry. It is also 75 minutes from Shanghai Hongqiao by high-speed train, and it is badly under-visited by foreigners, which means you will share the big sites mostly with Chinese school groups rather than with tour coaches.
It is for you if you read history and want a city where the history is the point rather than the backdrop, and if you are the sort of traveller who would rather spend two hours walking a wall than twenty minutes photographing it. It also suits anyone doing Shanghai and wanting one serious day trip or two-night side trip that is not Suzhou or Hangzhou.
Skip it if your trip is short and you want scenery - Nanjing is a working provincial capital and the landscape is one forested hill. Skip it if you are travelling with young children, because the single most important thing in the city is unsuitable for them. And avoid July and August if you have any choice: the summer here is genuinely punishing, with highs around 32C and almost no relief at night.
The Massacre Memorial
The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre marks the mass killing of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers by the Japanese army after the city fell in December 1937, along with mass rape and the destruction of much of the city. It is built over an excavated burial pit, part of which is left open and visible.
You need to know what the exhibits are before you go in. They are explicit. There are photographs of corpses, of mutilation, and of executions in progress. There is survivor testimony, including testimony about sexual violence, presented at length and without softening. There are human remains on display in situ. The museum is not trying to upset you gratuitously, but it is also not trying to protect you, and it should not.
Two practical consequences. First, give it a full half-day and nothing else afterwards. People come out quiet and stay quiet, and trying to go straight on to a temple or a restaurant does not work. Build in an afternoon of walking, or go back to the hotel. Second, this is not a site for children, and it is a hard visit for anyone with a personal connection to wartime atrocity. If that is you, the outdoor memorial areas and the Peace Park at the end carry the meaning without the photographic exhibits, and there is no shame in walking the grounds and skipping the halls.
The hall is one of the most visited museums in China - around six million people a year, over 70% of mainland visitors under 35. Entry is managed by advance reservation and the system has changed repeatedly; check the attraction page for how it currently works before you travel, because turning up without a booking does not reliably work.
Getting there and around
High-speed trains from Shanghai Hongqiao take about 75 minutes and run constantly. From Beijing it is around four hours. Nanjing has two main stations: Nanjing South, which is the high-speed hub, and Nanjing Station on the north side of the city near the lake. Both are on Metro Line 1, but check which one your ticket names.
Lukou airport has a dedicated metro line, Line S1, but for anywhere in eastern China the train beats flying door to door.
The metro covers everything you will want. Xinjiekou, the central interchange, is a reasonable place to stay: one or two stops from the Qinhuai riverside, the wall and the memorial, and a short ride from Purple Mountain. Pay with Alipay or WeChat rather than bothering with a transport card.
A three-day shape
Three nights is right. Two is possible but means cutting one of the three big blocks below.
- Day one: the Ming city. Start on the city wall. Walk a long section rather than looking at a gate - the Zhonghua Gate fortress in the south is the most impressive single structure, a layered killing-ground of four successive gates, and from there you can walk the ramparts. Afternoon at the Confucius Temple and along the Qinhuai river. Evening: the riverside is lit and very busy; eat somewhere one street back from it.
- Day two: the memorial. Morning at the Memorial Hall. Then nothing demanding. A long walk round Xuanwu Lake, inside the north wall, is the right antidote.
- Day three: Purple Mountain. The Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, tomb of the founding Ming emperor, approached along a Sacred Way lined with stone elephants and camels; the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, 392 granite steps up the hillside, which is where modern Chinese nationalism keeps its shrine; and the Linggu Temple pagoda. This is a full day on foot and the hill is steep in summer.
If you have a fourth day, add the Nanjing Museum, which is one of the three or four best museums in China and gets a fraction of the attention of the Shanghai Museum.
The food, and where the local habit differs
Nanjing is a duck city. The figure locally quoted is that a large share of the city's enormous annual duck consumption goes into one dish.
- Salted duck, *yanshuiya*. The bird is dry-cured with stir-fried salt, then brined with spices and poached - never roasted. The result is pale, faintly pink, barely seasoned to a palate expecting Peking duck, and served cold or at room temperature. The local habit is to buy half a duck by weight from a specialist shop, in a bag, and eat it at home with beer. Tourists order it hot in a restaurant off a menu, which is not how it is meant to be eaten and not where the good versions are.
- Duck blood and vermicelli soup, *yaxie fensi tang*. Duck blood curd and offal with sweet-potato vermicelli, fried tofu, dried shrimp and coriander. It began as a way of using the by-products of the salted-duck shops. It is a breakfast and a late-night food, eaten standing up or at a plastic table, and it is everywhere. The instant supermarket version is not the dish.
- Tangbao and xiaolongbao from the Jiangnan tradition, eaten mid-morning.
- Osmanthus and lotus root, *guihua tang ou* - lotus root stuffed with glutinous rice, simmered with rock sugar and osmanthus. Autumn, when the osmanthus is actually flowering, is when this makes sense.
- Lion's head meatballs, slow-braised pork with cabbage, sometimes enriched with crab.
What is genuinely overrated
The Confucius Temple and Qinhuai riverside at night. Worth an hour. It is a commercial strip of souvenir shops, costume-hire photo studios and chain snack stalls, with a very heavy crowd, and the painted-boat river cruise is a slow loop past the same illuminated facade. Do not build an evening round it.
Zhonghua Gate as a ticket rather than a walk. Many visitors pay, stand on top, take a photo of the wall receding, and leave. The structure only makes sense if you walk the ramparts.
The Presidential Palace. Historically significant as the Republican seat of government, but the display is thin and heavily politicised, and the building itself is modest. Go to the Nanjing Museum instead.
Nanjing as a one-day trip from Shanghai. It is physically possible and it is the common mistake. You will spend the day queueing for the memorial and running for a train, and you will see none of the wall or the mountain.