By Tanya Joslin
Guangzhou has been a trading city for more than two thousand years. It was here, in what was once called Canton, that for centuries foreign merchants found their principal gateway into China, that Cantonese cuisine found its voice, and that the Pearl River delta became the engine of the world’s most populous nation. Today it is a city of nineteen million people, one of the great commercial metropolises of Asia, a place of extraordinary contrasts: colonial island beside soaring modern skyline, ancient temples beside luxury malls, dim sum at its absolute source. And it remains, astonishingly, largely off the radar for Australian travellers.
That is changing. China Southern Airlines flies direct to Guangzhou from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin, connecting onwards to Europe, the United States and destinations across Asia, making Guangzhou one of the most naturally positioned stopovers in the world for Australians heading further afield. The Chinese government’s 240-hour visa-free transit policy means Australian passport holders can turn that connection into a proper stay, up to ten days, with no visa application and no fee. Guangzhou is also, by the standards of cities Australians typically stop over in, remarkably affordable: a five-star hotel room can cost less than $150 a night, dim sum lunch for two around $25, a taxi across the city rarely more than $15.
Here, drawing on several stopovers of my own, along with tips from a Guangzhou local, some still on my list for next time, is how to spend 36 hours in one of Asia’s most underestimated cities.
Related: Read our review on flying Business Class with China Southern Airlines
Sunday, 9 p.m. Arrive, Breathe, Look at the River
The drive from Baiyun International Airport into the city takes around an hour and deposits you into a skyline that immediately recalibrates your sense of what a city can look like. LN Hotel Five on Yanjiang Zhong Road is one of two hotels we’ve stayed at and happy to recommend. Part of the Small Luxury Hotels network, it sits directly on the Pearl River in the arts precinct of Yuexiu District, with rooms looking out over the water toward the Canton Tower, 604 metres of illuminated steel shifting colour through the night.
Check in, have a shower, and head straight to the rooftop bar for something cold, because, after a day of flying from Australia to Guangzhou, exploring can wait until morning. Below, the Pearl River catches the last of the light, the city lit and humming, boats tracing slow lines across the water while Guangzhou settles into its evening rhythm and the night closes in.
Monday, 9 a.m. Shamian Island
Take a taxi to Shamian Island, especially if summer is building heat by mid-morning and the key sightseeing needs doing early. This small oval of land in Liwan District, connected to the city by two bridges, was established as a British and French concession following the Second Opium War, formally divided in 1861, and it still carries that suspended, separate quality decades on. The broad boulevards are lined with fig trees and colonial-era buildings in various states of elegant weathering, French baroque facades giving way to neoclassical consulate architecture and, here and there, a Gothic flourish. We were there on a quiet weekday morning, the light still low through the trees, and it felt entirely removed from the modern megalopolis pressing in on all sides.
The Starbucks Reserve here occupies a beautifully restored two-storey colonial building, with a lush courtyard downstairs and, upstairs, a sitting room with a decorative fireplace. When we visited, it had been given over to an elaborate Harry Potter theme, house banners and spellbook props layered over the colonial detailing. Whether the theming is still in place by the time you visit is anyone’s guess, but the building is worth stopping for regardless, coffee fan or not. Walk the promenade twice, up one side and back the other. It is only 900 metres end to end, and there’s something new to notice on every pass.
Monday, Noon. Diandoude, 352 Beijing Road
A short taxi ride northeast brings you to Beijing Road, Guangzhou’s great pedestrian spine. Before you look at the shops, look down: glass panels set into the footpath reveal road surfaces dating from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, layered beneath the city’s feet, more than a thousand years of urban history visible at street level.
Diandoude is a perfect stop for lunch. The name, in Cantonese, translates roughly to “everything is possible,” and the menu does its best to prove it: har gow, siu mai, and the signature red rice rolls, fresh shrimp wrapped in vibrant crimson rice-flour skin, are non-negotiable. The jasmine tea arrives before the food, poured by a tea lady from a small pot with a brevity of steeping that puts most home tea-making to shame. A per-head tea charge, the cha wei fei, appears on the bill, standard practice in Guangzhou and much of China, where tea culture remains deeply woven into daily life. It will be refilled continuously and without prompting. Budget around ¥150 for two, including tea.
Monday, 2 p.m. The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall
Built between 1888 and 1894 by the Chen family clans of Guangdong Province, the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall is now the Guangdong Folk Art Museum, and every surface of its nineteen linked buildings is covered in something remarkable: ceramic friezes along the rooflines, wood carvings crowding the screen doors and window panels, brick carvings, iron castings and lime sculptures accumulating across courtyards that grow quieter the deeper you move into the complex. This is Lingnan artistry at its most ambitious, and one of the finest things Guangzhou has to offer. Allow at least ninety minutes; a taxi from Beijing Road takes around fifteen.
Afterwards, Yongqing Fang is worth a wander: a revitalised Xiguan neighbourhood of traditional arcade shophouses, small bars and boutique studios, with the photogenic Moon Bridge nearby and Lychee Bay’s gentle canal scenery a short walk further.
Monday, 7 p.m. Tao Tao Ju
Tao Tao Ju has been serving Cantonese food since 1880. The beautifully restored premises near Shangxiajiu Street, a short taxi from the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, are grand without being stiff: red lanterns, old Cantonese paintings, the warm noise of a room full of people eating well. The fried spring rolls arrive crisp, and the baked BBQ pork buns are worth the trip alone, glossy and faintly sweet, the pastry giving way to a filling that tastes like it’s been perfected over more than a century rather than assembled that morning. An English picture menu is available. Dinner for two with tea runs to around ¥200.
Tuesday Morning. Before You Fly
Most of Guangzhou’s attractions open at 9am at the earliest, and Baiyun Airport is a solid hour from the city centre by taxi. For an afternoon flight, that means leaving the hotel by noon at the latest, which makes Tuesday morning perfect for a slow breakfast, a final wander around the neighbourhood, and the quiet pleasure of a city that has surprised you enough to already be planning the return trip.
Those with an early evening departure, or later, have more room to move. Head to Yuexiu Park early, while the paths still belong mostly to the joggers getting a lap in before the heat sets in, and take in the Five Rams Statue, the city’s enduring symbol. Cast in granite in 1960, the statue depicts five immortals arriving on the backs of five rams during a famine, each ram carrying rice in its mouth, teaching the city’s early residents to farm and ending hunger for good. The rams turned to stone once their work was done, and the city has carried the story ever since: Guangzhou is still known as the City of Rams, as well as the City of Flowers, but that’s another story.
From there it’s a short trip to the Dafo Temple, tucked behind Beijing Road amid the shopfronts. Dating back more than a thousand years, the temple holds three monumental bronze Buddha statues and a working congregation still burning incense in front of them, the contrast between the quiet of the main hall and the shopping crowds outside is part of what makes it worth the detour. Round things off with a final meal somewhere unhurried, before the taxi to Baiyun and the flight home.
The Practicalities
Getting there: China Southern Airlines flies direct to Guangzhou from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin, connecting to Europe, the United States and across Asia. Confirm current routes and frequencies at csair.com
Entry: Australian passport holders are eligible for China’s 240-hour visa-free transit with a valid connecting international ticket. Complete China’s digital arrival card online before you board at nia.gov.cn – we strongly recommend you do this before you fly: attempting it on arrival adds unnecessary stress to what should be a smooth entry.
Where to stay Guangzhou punches well above its weight for hotel value. I have stayed at both of the following and can recommend each.
LN Hotel Five, 277 Yanjiang Zhong Road, Yuexiu District, is a boutique Pearl River-view property and Member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, ideally positioned for the itinerary above. lnhotelfive.com.
Langham Place Guangzhou, 638 Xingang East Road, Haizhu District, sits in a different part of the city closer to Canton Tower and the modern skyline, and offers the full five-star Langham experience at rates that would surprise you. langhamhotels.com
Tanya Joslin travelled to Guangzhou as part of an editorial partnership with China Southern Airlines.
Tanya co-founded Holidays for Couples with her mother Rhonda in 1996. For more than 25 years, the magazine defined romance travel in Australia before Tanya reimagined it as a digital platform with a strong SEO and social media presence. Tanya has lived in Canada, Japan, Abu Dhabi, Macao and now Saudi Arabia. When not in the office working on Holidays for Couples magazine, she is either planning her next trip or already boarding the plane.
