2-Day Guangzhou Food & Old Town Journey: Dim Sum, Markets & Shamian

Morning - Yum cha, the Cantonese institution
Guangzhou drinks tea in the morning, and eats while it does. You sit in a family teahouse where the trolleys still come round and order the standard set: har gow, steamed prawn dumplings with a pleated translucent skin; siu mai; char siu bao, the barbecue pork bun; cheung fun, rolled rice-noodle sheets; and a pot of pu'er or chrysanthemum tea. Your guide explains the etiquette - tapping two fingers on the table to thank whoever pours, and leaving the lid ajar when you want more water.

Late morning - Market and kitchen
Walk a wet market to see the produce that defines Cantonese food: live seafood in tanks, rice noodles made fresh, flowering chives, water chestnuts and a dozen varieties of dried seafood. Then step into a restaurant kitchen at a quiet hour to watch the wok work that gives Cantonese stir-fries their smoky edge, and see rice-noodle sheets steamed and rolled to order.

Lunch
A Cantonese restaurant lunch built around steamed fish, roast meats and seasonal greens.

Afternoon - Tea, and the old commercial quarter
Taste two or three teas at a specialist shop in the old commercial quarter, then walk the covered arcades of the Xiguan district, where the shophouse colonnades were designed for a climate of sun and sudden rain.

Evening - Dinner and a roasts shop
Dinner features Cantonese roast meats - char siu, roast goose and crisp pork belly - carved at a shop counter and eaten with rice.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Day tour - no hotel night included.

Morning - Shamian Island
Shamian is a sandbank in the Pearl River that was divided into British and French concessions after 1859 and laid out with gardens, consulates, churches and trading houses. Two thirds of a mile of arcaded buildings survive on a car-free island, and the banyan avenue in the middle is where the city comes to be photographed on a wedding day. Your guide reads the facades - the verandas, the shuttered windows, the colonial-era banks - and explains how the treaty-port century shaped the city.

Late morning - Xiguan and the arcades
Cross into the older Chinese city. Xiguan was the merchant quarter, and its qilou shophouses - a shop at street level, a home above, and a covered walkway in front for shade and shelter - still line several streets. You walk Enning Road and the restored Yongqing Fang lanes, past ancestral halls and small temples.

Lunch
Congee, rice-noodle rolls and a Cantonese soup at a neighbourhood restaurant.

Afternoon - The Pearl River waterfront
Walk down to the river and along the promenade, past the riverside churches and the docks that made Guangzhou China's southern trading gate, with the Canton Tower across the water on the far bank.

Evening - Free by the river
The walk ends at the waterfront, where you can stay for the evening lights or be returned to your hotel.

Meals
Lunch

Accommodation
Day tour - no hotel night included.