Chongqing 5 Days · A City Built on the Hills

The broth is usually rendered from beef tallow, chillies and Sichuan peppercorns — hot and numbing at once. Anything can go into the pot, and everyone cooks their own ingredients until done. Fiery, fragrant, loud and generous, it is Chongqing's signature flavour. From the bubbling nine-grid pot and the golden eight seconds in which tripe and duck intestine are blanched, to the cooling jelly desserts that follow, only a full hotpot meal counts as really having been to Chongqing. The itinerary deliberately chooses long-established local restaurants — no queueing for internet-famous spots, only the places locals queue for.

The Three Natural Bridges in Wulong, Chongqing, are a World Natural Heritage site famous for the karst spectacle of three bridges spanning two sinkholes. The sinkholes feel like vast wells opening onto the sky, and the location appeared in Transformers: Age of Extinction. Ride the shuttle down to the basin floor, where cliffs shoot straight up overhead and the ancient post station used as a filming location lies beneath you, with the Tianlong, Qinglong and Heilong bridges arching across in magnificent scale. Standing at the bottom and looking up, you genuinely understand the weight of the word "sinkhole".

Xiannv Mountain in Wulong, Chongqing, is part of the World Natural Heritage site and is known as the Switzerland of the East, with broad grasslands and dense forest on the high plateau. Cattle and sheep wander the slopes; summers are cool and winters bring snow. Ride the little train across the grassland, or hire a horse and take the mountain path slowly, watching livestock and forest beneath blue skies and white clouds.

The largest Miao architectural complex in China and a sacred site of Miao culture. Share a long-table banquet with the warm and hospitable Miao hosts, drink the ceremonial gate wine and watch Miao song and dance. Gate wine, long-table feasts and lusheng music greet you all the way in, with no threshold on Miao hospitality. Wander slowly between the drum tower and the wind-and-rain bridge.

In the karst gorge, sheer peaks stand on both banks and the river runs green as jade — hence the name "a thousand li of Wujiang, a hundred li of gallery". Board a cruise boat and drift downstream as one peak after another unfolds and the emerald water mirrors the mountains. The phrase is not an empty flourish; it is scenery that flows past your eyes for the entire voyage.

Built along a river and up a hillside, the city's roads stack in three dimensions across enormous changes in elevation. Ground-floor exits often open onto a road, and taking a lift up a dozen floors still delivers you to a road. Monorails pass through buildings and cable cars cross the river. Watch the monorail thread a tower at Liziba, feel the spatial dislocation on the Crown Escalator or the Yangtze River Cableway, then walk Jiefangbei and the Eighteen Steps. Towers, slopes, interchanges and stilt houses pile on top of one another until navigation apps simply give up — which is exactly what makes the Mountain City so addictive.

As night falls, thousands of lights illuminate the tiered buildings and warm golden reflections fall across the river, closely resembling the fantastical world of Spirited Away — one of Chongqing's best-known city cards. Built against the hillside, the stilt houses light up in layer upon layer of warm yellow, joining the outline of Qiansimen Bridge and the glitter on the water to form the city's most recognisable image. The view from Qiansimen Bridge is the best vantage point for the full panorama.