Three Days in Shanghai - Access Shanghai

A narrow Tianzifang alley by day, with parasols and shopfronts — Photograph by Jonipoon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Three days is the first length at which Shanghai stops being a checklist. It adds the lane houses properly, a working temple, and an evening that is not spent walking between monuments.

The plan

Days 1–2 — As above.
Day 3, 09:30 — ⭐ The lane-house walk, which is the best architecture day in the city and costs nothing. Xintiandi first — the restored version, plus the Shikumen Open House Museum to see how these buildings were actually lived in.
11:30 — Tianzifang, twenty minutes south — the same architecture occupied rather than restored, narrow and messy and much better.
13:30 — The unimproved version: the lanes around Laoximen and Yong’an Road, where people still live. ⚠️ Walk through, do not photograph into windows.
15:00 — The Jade Buddha Temple. ⚠️ Buy the second ticket for the jade Buddha hall — the one most visitors miss, and the reason the temple exists.
17:00 — Or, if contemporary art suits you better, the Power Station of Art instead — free, in a converted coal plant, closed Mondays.
19:30 — Evening in the Concession around Anfu Road, or on the Bund rooftops if you want the view with a drink. ⚠️ Last train.

The yellow outer wall of the Jade Buddha Temple hung with red lanterns — Photograph by Iamtherealnick, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

⚠️ Monday is the day to reshuffle. Most museums close; the Bund, the lanes, the Concession and the temples do not. If your three days include a Monday, make it this one and move the museum day.

Converted shikumen houses at Xintiandi with shopfronts in the old brick facades — Photograph by Can Pac Swire from Toronto, Canada, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

What this plan is built around

Not a list of sights, but the constraints: ⭐ your payment app has to work before any of this does; the Shanghai Museum and the China Art Museum are free and still need an advance reservation with your passport; most museums close on Monday; and the metro stops between about 22:00 and 23:00, which is hours before the restaurants do and is the one deadline that actually strands people here.

The single tall chimney of the former Nanshi power plant against a blue sky — Photograph by Fayhoo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Other lengths

2 daysTwo Days in Shanghai 5 daysFive Days in Shanghai A weekA Week in Shanghai

Checked on 6 September 2026. Reservation requirements, closing days and entry rules change — confirm before you travel. All sixteen sights, one page each, in Landmarks & Sights.