Take in Shanghai’s dizzying surrounds from The Bund’s sleek rooftop bars with a cocktail in hand

By Susie Gordon & Rachel Will
Photos by Peter Winter

Shanghai modern with all her glitzy excess and old school glamour comes to a conference at the storied curve of the Huangpu River dubbed the Bund. It is here the city’s most avant-garde dining venues choose to set up shop among a host of luxury hotels occupying architectural relics and former shipping wharves. For a view of the city’s iconic neon landscape, seek out the summits of river’s adjacent towers. From a vantage point on the Puxi side of the river, observe a panorama of the old Bund waterfront with its neoclassical buildings set against a glowing vista of contemporary skyscrapers that form the Lujiazui financial zone. Atop the Bund’s old Palace Hotel, take a close-up look at the former ‘Wall Street of Asia’ with its many banking and business headquarters such as the old HSBC building with its grand dome. Glimpses from the North Bund area reveal the Suzhou Creek with its Art Deco apartment blocks and the theaters and museums that now form the Rockbund complex. The landscape can be appreciated just as well from the Pudong side of the river, among the skyscrapers that rise from the waterfront. While its narrow alleys may give you a glimpse of Shanghai’s intricacies from street-level, enjoy iconic skyscrapers like the curiously designed Shanghai World Financial Building that resembles a bottle opener and the futuristic Oriental Pearl Tower from higher ground. Here are our picks for the five best vantage points to take it all in, with a cocktail in hand.