上海半日バスツアー：Garden園、外und、南京路、孔子Temple

We booked this tour for the end of August, expecting to sit on a bus for a few hours while driving through town. It turned out quite different and much better! Since the Confuscius Temple was closed for renovations, the organizer added Yu Garden Markets. They also offered to add some other attractions to the tour but we thought that we had enough on our schedule already, so passed on that. With this, all the attractions were within easy walking distance of each other, so it ended up being a full walking tour (which was fine since the heat was tolerable that day). I am not sure why this is called a bus tour, though. Our tour guide, Maria, was excellent and made this busy day between two long flights a wonderful experience. She was able to provide an amazing amount of background information and context for the things we were viewing, like the various pavillions, ponds, trees and rocks in Yu Garden, the 23 historical buildings on the Bund, the various high-rise buildings across the river from the Bund, and the main historical stores on Nanjing Road. She also had quite a few little stories and anecdotes along the way which made it much more interesting. The enterance fee to Yu Garden and some water were provided which was good (it was 28C with high humidity). Since we were the only customers on this day, our meeting point was moved from the advertised hotels to Yu Garden. On the other hand, we were dropped off at our hotel at the end which made up for the (small) taxi fare at the start. Maria was also very flexible in when to take breaks, when to move on, and happy to answer our many questions (often only slightly related to the tour). She even extended the time for us by about two hours since we had not moved so fast earlier. Trying to fit this tour into four hours would have been quite rushed. Overall, we had a wonderful experience and are extremely pleased with the tour. Maria was a very pleasant person and an excellent tour guide. We happily recommend this tour if you would like to see some historical and some modern parts of Shanghai.