Especial Shanghai
Walking Into the Shanghai Museum Without a Queue
Entry is free and you can walk in. The star bronzes have moved across the river to Pudong, and while a special exhibition is on, the reservation rule is back.
Por Marit de WildeWalking Shanghai's lanes, one lilong at a time
Admission to the Shanghai Museum (People's Square) is free, and individual visitors walk in at the South Gate with a passport. The galleries open at 09:00 and close at 17:00. A major special exhibition is running, and reservations come back while one is on, so check before you turn up.
What the building holds
The museum is a round granite drum on a square podium, with four arched roof wings rising from it like the handles of a bronze ding vessel. Stone lions guard the plaza. Inside, an open rotunda climbs four floors, spiral balconies ringing each level.
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The door at People's Square
Nothing is sold at the door for the permanent galleries. Special exhibitions and the audio guide are charged separately. Parties of 20 or more reserve by phone on 021-63724550 at least seven days ahead, with an ID list and a letter of introduction.
Half the collection sits in Pudong
Shanghai Museum East (1952 Century Avenue) now holds many of the collection's star bronzes, jades and seals. It opens Wednesday to Monday, 10:00 to 18:00, and closes on Tuesdays. A coach itinerary that stops only at People's Square sees half the museum.
The branch was built for volume and takes up to 20,000 visitors a day. Individual visitors need no booking. Curio-City and the Digital Gallery are booked separately from the free permanent galleries. It stands on the Century Avenue frontage near Century Park, a pale stone cube wrapped in a spiralling band of facade, with escalators criss-crossing the six-storey atrium behind its glass wall.
Walking the rest of People's Square
Shanghai History Museum (facing People's Park) is five minutes from the Shanghai Museum's north side and makes the natural pairing. The Shanghai Museum covers 5,000 years of China. This one covers the city. Entry is free. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 17:00, and last entry is 16:00. It occupies the 1933 Art Deco former Shanghai Race Club building, brown brick and granite, with a tall clock tower over a colonnaded grandstand.
Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center (100 Renmin Avenue) sits on the far side of the same square and has reopened after renovation with four new zones. Entry is free with real-name booking: every visitor needs a reserved slot in their own name and a passport. It opens Thursday to Tuesday and closes on Wednesdays. An enormous backlit scale model of the whole city fills one room, Pudong towers in miniature, and that model is the best 20 minutes in People's Square. From outside, the building is a white square block with four upswept corner arches like an open flower.
People's Park (Renmin Gongyuan) lies directly north of the museum and costs nothing to enter. The old racecourse ground is lotus ponds and willow banks now, hemmed by the glass towers of Nanjing Road. On Saturday and Sunday, from midday to 17:00, the marriage market takes over the paths, with laminated A4 matchmaking profiles pegged to umbrellas. Give it the hour before your entry slot.
Park Hotel Shanghai (170 Nanjing West Road) keeps a brass survey marker set into its lobby floor, the official geodetic centre point of Shanghai. The lobby is open to the public and free to look at, and the stop takes 30 seconds. Most bus itineraries skip it. The tower above is a slim 1934 brown-brick Art Deco design by Hudec, stepping back in tiers. Rooms are ¥¥¥.
Lunch and a show on the square
Barbarossa Restaurant & Lounge (231 Nanjing West Road) stands on stilts over a lily pond inside People's Park, a Moroccan-style pavilion reached by a short causeway, with keyhole arches, lanterns and low cushions. It is the closest proper sit-down lunch to the museum doors, and the tables look out on water. The venue runs over several levels and has a roof terrace. It opens at 11:00 and serves until late. Prices are ¥¥¥, and tables are worth booking ahead.
Shanghai Grand Theatre (north-west corner of People's Square) is a white glass-and-steel box under a concave roof that curves upward like a cupped hand, lit from within at night. The season runs to 860 shows, and the 'Replay' programme carries 75 productions, including a long run of Phantom of the Opera in Chinese. Buy seats direct; the building runs no walk-up tours. Tickets are ¥¥ to ¥¥¥¥ by production.
The walk down Nanjing Road to the river
Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street (from the museum's corner of the square) has run unbroken to the Bund since the eastward extension in 2020, 1.6km of car-free street with no road crossings. Neon hoardings and 1930s department store facades line it, and a stubby white-and-red tourist trolley trundles down the middle. The crowds are shoulder to shoulder after dark. Coach groups use the street as their meeting and drop-off point.
Rockbund Art Museum (20 Huqiu Road) sits on a narrow lane along that walk, in the 1932 Art Deco former Royal Asiatic Society building, its cream facade screened with Chinese-motif lattice. The galleries stack tight up the floors, and the top-floor terrace looks over the Bund roofs. The work here is contemporary. Entry is free, and reservation is required. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00. Last admission is 17:30.
The Bund (Zhongshan East No.1 Road waterfront) is 20 minutes on foot down Nanjing Road East, free and open at all hours. The raised stone embankment walkway faces a mile of floodlit 1920s banking houses on one side and the Pudong skyline across brown river water on the other, with sightseeing boats mid-channel. Go at dusk, when the colonial facades and the Pudong lights are both lit.
Yu Garden and the Mid-Lake Pavilion
Yu Garden (Yuyuan) is the standard second stop after the museum. Adult entry is ¥40, and students and seniors pay ¥20. At Spring Festival it is ¥60. The garden opens 09:00 to 16:30. Last entry is 16:00. Tickets are one per ID document, sold in morning and afternoon sessions. The Ming-dynasty scholar garden is grey rockeries and carp ponds, with dragon-crested walls and zigzag covered walkways under the upturned eaves of the bazaar roofs.
Huxinting Teahouse (Mid-Lake Pavilion) reopened in July after nearly two years of restoration. The two-storey timber pavilion sits on a tiny island under flared tiled roofs, red lanterns at its lattice windows, reached by the Nine-Turn Bridge over green water. Crowds photograph it from the bridge. Tea comes by the pot at ¥¥ to ¥¥¥, and one table is kept for Queen Elizabeth II. It opens 09:30 to 22:00, later than anything else in the area, and takes no bookings. The floors are small, so a handful of people fit and a coachload does not.
Out to the canal town
Zhujiajiao Ancient Town is the usual half-day pairing with a museum day, and you can do it without a tour. Metro Line 17 from Hongqiao Railway Station takes 40 minutes and costs ¥6. The streets are free to enter and open 08:30 to 17:00. Whitewashed Ming-Qing shophouses stand over green water, flat wooden sampans are poled under low humpback bridges, and the five-arch Fangsheng stone bridge crosses the canal. Kezhi Garden costs ¥20 and Hexin Garden ¥30. Helong Art Gallery is ¥20, and a combined ticket is ¥60.
Buses and what a guided day adds
City Sightseeing Double-Decker Bus (People's Square kerb, beside the museum plaza) is the red open-top service painted with graffiti-style Shanghai landmarks, run by a licensed local operator. Route 1 links People's Square with the Bund, Yu Garden, Chenghuang Temple and Xintiandi. It runs 09:00 to 19:00. A one-day ticket is ¥60 and two days ¥80. A full-network ticket is ¥100 for 24 hours, and the 48-hour version is ¥180. Commentary in eight languages comes through handed-out earphones. You walk on, with no booking.
Private full-day tours run seven days a week. Book the day you want ahead. No guide walks you round the galleries at People's Square.
Best time to go
Arrive in the morning. The last entry is 15:00. The museum closes on Mondays, except on public holidays. Yu Garden closes on Mondays as well, so a Monday itinerary loses both. The Urban Planning Exhibition Center stays open on Mondays, which makes it the Monday stand-in.
In Pudong, the closed day is Tuesday. Come on a Saturday or a Sunday if you want the marriage market with your museum morning. On peak holiday evenings, police barriers can meter access to the Bund.
Who the day suits
A free walk-in museum suits an independent visitor who can also give the Pudong branch a half day of its own. A guided bus day suits anyone who wants the square, the river and the water town handled in one run, with the galleries still walked alone.
Planning it
Monday and Tuesday are the two days that break this itinerary. Reserve the planning centre slot and the Rockbund before you travel, and settle any special-exhibition reservation the same way.
See the Shanghai guide and the Shanghai hotel search.
Antes de ir
Do you need to book the Shanghai Museum?
Individual visitors walk in at the South Gate with a passport, and the permanent galleries are free. A major special exhibition is on at the moment, which brings back the reservation requirement, so check before you go. Groups of 20 or more book by phone on 021-63724550 at least seven days ahead, and need an ID list and a letter of introduction.
What are the Shanghai Museum opening hours and closed days?
People's Square is open Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 15:00. It shuts on Mondays unless the Monday is a public holiday. Shanghai Museum East in Pudong is open Wednesday to Monday, 10:00 to 18:00, and shuts on Tuesdays.
Is Shanghai Museum East worth the trip across the river?
Many of the star bronzes, jades and seals now sit at 1952 Century Avenue in Pudong, so if you only visit People's Square you miss a large part of the collection. The branch admits up to 20,000 visitors a day and individuals do not need to book, but Curio-City and the Digital Gallery are booked separately.
What are the Shanghai History Museum opening hours?
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:00, and free to enter. It is a five-minute walk from the north side of the Shanghai Museum, in the 1933 Art Deco building that was the Shanghai Race Club, facing People's Park.
Is a bus tour worth it when museum entry is free?
The hop-on hop-off double-decker costs ¥60 for one day and ¥80 for two, and it runs from 09:00 to 19:00. Route 1 calls at People's Square, the Bund, Yu Garden, Chenghuang Temple and Xintiandi. Private full-day tours run seven days a week and have to be booked ahead. No guide takes you round the galleries themselves.
