Which Museum First in Guangzhou?

The answer to 'which first': the intact tomb of Zhao Mo, found under Xianggang hill in 1983 and left where it was, the silk-threaded jade suit and the 'Emperor Wen' gold seal, for ¥10 — the strongest 'only here' in Guangzhou. It is also the one ticketed museum here whose own guide allows buying at the desk with a document, which is what makes it the first stop for a passport holder without WeChat; the guide's wording is 'ID card', so arrive at 9:00 on a weekday, when the free 9:30 tour leaves and the tomb chamber's first hourly slot is emptiest. Two things to know: the lower chamber is a separate free quota released at midnight the day before, and without it you see the chamber from the upper level only; and the shops and 'guides' outside the gate claiming to be official are not. Closed Mondays. For the first museum of the trip for anyone; the passport-and-no-WeChat visitor, who has a desk here and nowhere else on this page except the free walk-ins.

The other half of the same museum, 2 km east, and the one museum on this page whose notice names overseas visitors and tells the gate what to do with them: scan the QR code, not the ID card. What you see is ruins under a roof — the 2nd-century-BC stone pool and winding stone channel, then a wall of stratigraphy stacking every government seat that stood here for 2,000 years — strong if you like reading the ground, flat if you came for objects, which are at the tomb. Booking is WeChat only and there is no desk, so this is the second stop, not the first, and the route is one-way from the east gate to Beijing Road. Weekday afternoons are quiet; summer weekend slots go by the previous evening. For the second museum of the day, after the tomb, for anyone who can book on WeChat; the one whose gate has a written rule for a foreign passport.

The city museum since 1929, in the five-storey tower Zhu Liangzu put on the Ming wall in 1380 — and the reason to climb is the fifth floor, looking south over the park and the Memorial Hall's blue roof to the river. It is small and stair-bound, worth an hour, and the part most relevant to a Western visitor is not the tower but the free Zhongyuan Tower annexe next door with the Canton enamels, armorial porcelain and export paintings. Booking runs on WeChat and nothing we could read says what the window does with a passport, so treat it as the add-on across the road from the tomb, not the plan; if the museum is shut, the wall and the cannon terrace outside are in the free park anyway. Closed Mondays. For the hour after the tomb for the view and the export art; not a first stop for anyone who needs a desk.

The big one — Chaozhou woodcarving, Duan inkstones, export porcelain and the Guangdong history galleries in the 2010 red 'treasure box' on Huacheng Square — and the hardest door on this page for a foreign visitor: WeChat is the museum's only channel, every visitor including children needs a real-name slot, tickets drop at 22:00 and go within minutes in summer, one order per account per fortnight, and the entry rule is written as an ID-card check at the west gate. Its own pages take a passport for the audio guide and a wheelchair, so carry it and expect the staffed lane; whether the form takes a passport number nobody has published, and there is no English site to ask. If you cannot book, the two published safety valves are the walk-up lane for over-65s and disabled visitors and a paid special-exhibition ticket (by a local listing, not the museum). Do not build a Monday around it; do build a summer evening around it, when the 18:00-20:00 slots are the easiest to get. For the WeChat-capable visitor with a whole afternoon; a summer evening for anyone; not the first museum for a passport holder without the app.

The most decorated building in the province — the 1893 ancestral hall every Chen lineage paid into, with brick, stone and wood carving, pottery and lime-plaster ridges, cast iron and murals on one complex — and a building first, museum second: the folk-craft halls are small and Chinese-labelled, the carvings are the point. It is also the fiddliest ¥10 in Guangzhou: closed on Tuesdays when the others close on Mondays, real-name WeChat ticketing, and a turnstile built for Chinese ID cards whose only passport rule comes from a platform guide. Sort the booking the day before and plan on the staffed desk, not the gate; the walk-up quota is for the elderly and disabled only. Skip the monthly free day and the mid-morning tour-group hour if you want the halls to yourself. For the Monday museum, and the one for people who look up at roofs rather than into cases; not the one to arrive at without a booking.

The rare Guangzhou museum with no booking wall at all: free, no reservation, no ID, just the security scanner, by the museum's own guide. What it is: the Panyu county Confucian school of 1370 — Lingxing gate, pool and bridge, Dacheng hall, the most complete such compound left in the city — which in 1926 housed the sixth session of the Peasant Movement Institute under Mao Zedong, with the dormitories, lecture hall and Mao's office kept as they were. If political exhibitions leave you cold, come for the Ming architecture and the shade and give it half an hour; panels are mostly Chinese. It sits 400 m from the palace site and 800 m from Beijing Road, so it is the third stop on a Zhongshan 4th Road afternoon, or the only stop if WeChat has defeated you. Weekday afternoons are empty. Closed Mondays. For the visitor with no WeChat and no patience left; the end of a Zhongshan 4th Road walk; not the museum to cross the city for.