Morning - tea at Eling Park
Eling Park sits on the highest ridge of the Yuzhong peninsula, the strip of land between the Yangtze and the Jialing. It was laid out in 1909 as the private garden of Li Yaoting, a salt merchant from Yunnan who made his fortune on the river, and it is one of Chongqing's earliest private gardens. Because the ground falls away on both sides, the garden borrows the two rivers as scenery, and from the Kansheng Pavilion you can see the Yangtze and the Jialing meeting in two different colours.
The morning begins in the park's tea house, which is what the locals use it for: a covered seat, a lidded cup, a thermos of hot water refilled without asking, and no pressure to leave. Over the first pot your guide explains how tea is drunk in the Sichuan basin and why a Chongqing morning is built around a cup rather than a coffee. Small sweet things from a nearby stall are brought in to go with it.
Late morning - Erchang, the printing works
A short walk downhill brings you to the Erchang quarter, which is the city's best argument that old industry can be delicious. The buildings went up in 1937 as the printing plant of the Republic's Central Bank and were renamed Chongqing Printing Factory No. 2 in 1953; the presses stopped decades ago and the concrete frames now hold cafés, bakeries, small restaurants and studios. This is where the city's specialty coffee scene actually lives, and the class of it is unexpectedly high. You take a coffee at one of the roasters, then eat your way through two or three of the small kitchens: a noodle counter, a fried-snack stall and a bakery, with your guide doing the ordering.
Lunch
A small restaurant in or beside Erchang, with a short menu of Sichuan home cooking - a soup, a cold dish, one wok dish and rice. The portions are deliberately modest, because the afternoon continues eating.
Afternoon - the Shancheng Steps down to the river
After lunch you walk the Shancheng Steps, one of the old foot routes down the hill from the ridge to the river. The path passes the Ming city wall at Tongyuanmen, threads through the Shancheng lane with its laundry lines and corner shops, and comes out near the site of the French charity hospital. Halfway down there is a tea stop where the terrace faces the Yangtze. Further along, the Shibati lanes descend to the river in stone flights - the name means "eighteen flights of steps" and the neighbours used to carry water up them - and the site includes the Great Tunnel air-raid shelter, now a memorial to the wartime bombing of the city. It is free to enter and closed on Mondays.
Evening - riverside barbecue
The day finishes down at the water with charcoal barbecue: river fish and aubergine, skewers of beef and tofu skin, grilled corn and greens, all cooked to order at a table beside the river with the bridges lit above. The chilli is served on the side here, so the table decides its own heat. A bowl of ice jelly or cold rice-flour shrimp finishes the meal, and the guide sees you back to the hotel.
Meals
Lunch, Dinner
Accommodation
Day tour - no hotel night included.
