The Cosmopolitan city of Nanjing

NANJING , formerly known in the West as Nanking, is one of China's greatest cities. Its very name, "Southern Capital", stands as a direct foil to the "Northern Capital" of Beijing, and the city is still considered the rightful capital of China by many Overseas Chinese, particularly those from Taiwan.

Today, it's a wealthy, prosperous city, benefiting both from its proximity to Shanghai, and from its gateway position on the Yangzi River , which stretches away west deep into China's interior. Although it has become rather an expensive place to visit, Nanjing now offers a fairly cosmopolitan range of facilities for the tourist, as well as a wealth of historic sites that can easily fill several days' exploration.

The City
Nanjing is huge and a thorough visit of all its sights would take several days. The downtown area comprises three main focal points and offers good shopping and dining as well as a few fascinating relics of the city's turbulent pre-1949 history. The north of the city takes in the enormous Xuanwu Hu Park and the Yangzi River area, while to the west are a number of smaller parks, including the Ming Chaotian Palace and the Memorial to the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre . The east and the south contain some of the best-preserved relics of Nanjing's mighty Ming city wall , as well as the excellent Nanjing Museum . The final area - and the most interesting of all for tourists - is the green hill beyond the city walls to the east of the city, Zijin Shan , with its wealth of historical and cultural relics. If you only have a day or two to spare, you should at least try and see Zijin Shan, the Nanjing Massacre Museum, the city wall and the Tianchao Palace , the former seat of government under both the nineteenth-century Taipings and the Nationalists.

Eating and drinking
Nanjing has a relatively wide selection of local, regional Chinese and foreign foods, often at much more reasonable prices than their counterparts in nearby Shanghai. It's an especially great place to sample Jiangsu cuisine , most notably yanshui ya (salted duck), so renowned that it has now become a country-wide favourite. The duck is first pressed and salted, then steeped in brine and baked - the skin should be creamy-coloured and the flesh red and tender. Other Jiangsu dishes worth trying include majiang yaopian (pork intestines), jiwei xia (a lake crustacean vaguely resembling a lobster, but much better tasting, locals affirm) and paxiang jiao (a type of vegetable that resembles banana leaves). The best areas of town to sample Jiangsu food are in the north of town, north of Gulou along Zhongyang Lu and northwest along Zhongshan Bei Lu.

The presence of a heavy contingent of foreign students in the city, as well as a growing population of expatriate and home-grown business people, ensures a scattering of highly Westernized restaurants and bars , which are not always that expensive. There are, in particular, a number of places around the Nanjing University Foreign Students' Residence that cater to Western palates. Otherwise Xinjiekou and Fuzi Miao are generally good districts to browse for restaurants. For standard Chinese snacks - noodles, Sichuan hotpot, jiaozi and wonton soup - promising areas include Ninghai Lu, just north from the main entrance of the Normal University, the area just west of Fuzi Miao, and the area immediately southeast of Xinjiekou.

Entertainment
Nanjing nightlife is nowhere near as varied as Shanghai's, but you can still find a mix of everything from karaoke joints to discos. There are also some remarkably Western bars , complete with draught beer and pub games such as darts and pool. The clientele in the places mentioned below is usually a mixture of Chinese and foreigners, and they can be excellent places to meet well-to-do locals. You'll find the bars are generally busy throughout the week, though dancing is usually reserved for Friday and Saturday nights. A night out can be relatively inexpensive, as there is no cover charge for foreigners at most bars and beers can be as cheap as ¥10 per bottle. Go-kart racing has recently caught on in a big way: Mini Grandprix Sport, several blocks south of Zhonghua Men at 201 Yuhuatai (at #5 Yuhua Building), has the best racing track (¥30 per ride).

Nanjing's cultural life, however, is sadly lagging far behind Shanghai's, though you might coincide with infrequent acrobatics or Chinese opera performances somewhere in town. The lecturers and foreign students at the Nanjing University Foreign Student's Residence are often in tune with the latest happenings. Upmarket hotels might also have the latest information on hand.

Zijin Shan
Not far outside the Zhongshan Gate to the east is Zijin Shan (Purple Gold Mountain), named after the colour of its rocks. Traditionally, the area has been a cool and shady spot to escape the furnace heat of Nanjing's summer, with beautiful fragrant woods and stretches of long grass, but here also are the three most visited sites in Nanjing. Of these, the centrepiece, right in the middle of the hill, is Zhongshan Ling , the magnificent mausoleum of China's first president, Sun Yatsen. To the east of Zhongshan Ling is the Linggu Si temple complex, and to the west are the ancient Ming Xiaoling , tombs of the Ming emperors who ruled China from Nanjing. #