Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, the small cities along the Yangtze. Walking-paced routes that earn the time spent.
Chongqing is not laid out in blocks but in flights of steps. A three-hour descent from the cliff lane to the river, taken at the pace the stairs allow. CN: 重庆的梯坎：从山城巷走到长江边
A canal city that asks you to sit down first. A one-day walking route through Yangzhou's morning tea houses, salt-merchant gardens, and the lake spring made famous. CN: 扬州慢行：早茶、盐商园林与瘦西湖
A day-long walk down the north–south spine Beijing was drawn along — from the drums at Gulou to the rebuilt gate at Yongdingmen, at the pace the line was meant to be read. CN: 步行北京中轴线：一条线走完老城
Chongqing hands you a gradient, not a grid. Read it the way it was built — by elevation, up the tikan from the rivers to the trains that run through towers. CN: 徒步重庆：一级一级爬上的山城
Twenty-five kilometres of Ming rampart still stand over Nanjing. Walk it south to north — from a fortress gate built to swallow armies to the causeways of Xuanwu Lake — and the city rearranges itself under your feet. CN: 沿明城墙步行一日，从中华门到玄武湖
Skip the ninety-minute bullet train and take the K-class west along the river's north bank. Four hours, two yuan ferries, and the Yangtze at the height a fisherman sees it. CN: 从武汉到宜昌：慢车沿江行
A working city two hours south of Chengdu, built on thousand-metre brine wells: guild halls, silk lanterns in progress, and a museum over live fossil beds. CN: 自贡三日：盐、灯与恐龙的城市