Xuanwu Lake, Jiming Temple, the Taicheng Wall and the Presidential Palace

The stretch of the Ming wall behind Jiming Temple, where the wall runs along the south shore of Xuanwu Lake: from the top at Jiefangmen you have the lake on one side, Purple Mountain ahead and the Zifeng Tower behind — one of the classic views of the city. It is part of the northern section from Shencemen to Taipingmen (five or six kilometres depending on who is counting, with six stairways up), which reopened in full on 26 August 2025 after ten months of repairs. The name Taicheng comes from the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties palace city, which lay nearby; the wall you stand on is Ming. Day ticket ¥30; in the evening only the Jiefangmen stretch is open.

The wall the first Ming emperor built round his capital in the 14th century, following the hills and lakes rather than a square — so it wanders from Xuanwu Lake to the Qinhuai River and round the foot of Purple Mountain. The city tourism bureau says about 22 km of it is open to visitors, from 25 stairways: 15 charge and 10 are free. It is not one attraction but several separate walks, each with its own ticket: the Taicheng stretch by Xuanwu Lake, the Zhonghua Gate barbican in the south, the Zhongshan Gate stretch in the east. The bureau's joint World Heritage bid page calls it the highest-ranking and largest of China's surviving city walls. Pick one stretch; do not try to do it all.

Three governments used the same compound on Changjiang Road, and the museum keeps all three: the Qing viceroys of Liangjiang had their offices here, the Taiping king Hong Xiuquan built his palace on the site in 1853, and from 1912 it housed the Republic of China — Sun Yat-sen was sworn in as provisional president here on 1 January 1912, and the Nationalist government sat here until April 1949. What you walk through is less a palace than a campus of late-Qing and Republican office buildings around a garden with a lake. ¥35, sold only as timed real-name tickets on the 南京总统府 WeChat mini-program; closed Mondays. The museum's own ticket page speaks only of Chinese ID cards — foreign visitors should read the ID notes on this page before going.

The bar-and-restaurant block that wraps the west side of the Presidential Palace, between Changjiang Road and Changjiang Back Street. It opened on 24 December 2004 as a commercial quarter of grey-brick buildings in the Republican style. How many buildings there are depends on who is counting: the city's cultural-industry listing says seventeen, other accounts nineteen, the operator twenty-one as planned. The operator's own account, quoted in the provincial press, is that four of them are genuine Republican-era houses and the rest were built for the development. By 2011 it had 27 bars. The district government now pitches it as the core of the Changjiang Road night-time economy, with markets, shows and restaurants as well as bars. Come here to eat and drink after the museums close — not for history.

Under the Qing, the Jiangning Imperial Textile Office in Nanjing wove silk for the court — and under the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors the post was held for close to sixty years by the family of Cao Xueqin, who later wrote Dream of the Red Chamber. This is a modern museum built on the office's site, designed by the architect Wu Liangyong, with rebuilt pavilions and a pond inside. The galleries cover the textile office, Nanjing yunjin brocade, the novel and the qipao. ¥30, closed Mondays, across Changjiang Road from the Presidential Palace. Worth an hour if you know the novel or want to see yunjin up close; the rest can be skipped.

A working Buddhist nunnery on a small hill above Xuanwu Lake, and the city religious-affairs bureau's 'one of Nanjing's oldest temples': a site of worship from 300, the Liang emperor Wu's Tongtai Temple in the 6th century — the age of the poet's 'four hundred and eighty temples of the Southern Dynasties' — and refounded under its present name by the first Ming emperor in 1387. What stands today went up from the 1980s on: rebuilding was relaunched in spring 1988 and the seven-storey Bhaisajyaguru pagoda at the top was finished in April 1990 (press accounts; the religious-affairs bureau says only that the temple was gradually restored and reopened). Entry is a ¥10 incense ticket. In late March the cherry trees on Jimingsi Road below the gate make it one of the city's most crowded photo spots; the trees are on the public road, so you do not need to enter the temple to see them.

From May 1946 to March 1947 the Communist delegation led by Zhou Enlai lived and worked in three houses in a lane off Hanfu Street, negotiating with the Nationalist government a few hundred metres away in the Presidential Palace. The memorial keeps the houses — No. 30 was Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao's office and home, No. 35 housed Dong Biwu and others, No. 17 was the delegation's office — plus an exhibition hall on the negotiations. Free, closed Mondays. It is the other side of the same story the Presidential Palace tells, and seeing both in one afternoon is the point.

The older of Nanjing's two main stations, on the north shore of Xuanwu Lake — you step out of the south building and the lake is in front of you. It handles the conventional (non-high-speed) trains and part of the Shanghai-Nanjing intercity service; most long-distance high-speed trains, including the Beijing-Shanghai line, stop instead at Nanjing South, about 13 km south in Yuhuatai District. The one thing to get right is which station is printed on your ticket. Metro Lines 1 and 3 both stop here.

Nanjing was the capital of six successive southern dynasties between the 3rd and 6th centuries, when it was called Jiankang — and almost nothing of that city stands above ground. This museum is built on part of the Jiankang site, and the city's museum administration says it is Nanjing's largest museum devoted to the period: three permanent galleries on the capital, its style and its people. The building, 23,000 sq m, is by the American Pei firm (贝氏建筑事务所). ¥30, closed Mondays, on Changjiang Road opposite the Presidential Palace — the one place in the city to see the Six Dynasties layer indoors.

A 5.13 sq km lake park inside the city, with the Ming wall along its west shore, Jilong Hill to the south, Purple Mountain to the east and Nanjing Station on the north bank. It was an imperial pleasure lake under the Six Dynasties and, under the Ming, the site of the national archive of household registers (黄册库) on an island. Free since 2010; the lakeside road is open 24 hours, the five islands until 21:00 or 22:00. It is the city's big walk — best in spring and autumn, and at the end of a day after Jiming Temple and the wall at Taicheng.