3 Best Sights in Shanghai, China

Rising 88 floors—eight being the Chinese number imparting wealth and prosperity—this tower combines the classic 13-tier Buddhist pagoda design with postmodern steel and glass. It houses one of the highest hotels in the world—the Grand Hyatt Shanghai occupies the 53rd to 87th floors. The 88th-floor observation deck, reached in 45 seconds by two high-speed elevators, offers 360-degree views of the city. The brave can also try the tower's Skywalk experience, a glass pathway without rails outside the 88th floor.

Skip the line and instead spend what you would've shelled out for a ticket to the observation deck at the 87th-floor Cloud 9 bar.

This art deco structure overlooking People's Park was once the tallest hotel in Shanghai. Completed in 1934, it was known for its luxurious rooms, fabulous nightclub, and chic restaurants. Today the lobby is the most vivid reminder of its glorious past. It was an early inspiration for architect I.M. Pei (creator of the glass pyramids at the Louvre).

This hotel at the corner of the Bund and Nanjing Dong Lu is among Shanghai's most treasured buildings. If any establishment will give you a sense of Shanghai's past, it's this one. Its high ceilings, ornate woodwork, and streamlined fixtures are still intact. Following a renovation in 2010, the hotel reopened as the Fairmont Peace Hotel, with the jazz bar, tea lounge, restaurant, shopping arcade, and ballroom all restored to their original glory, evoking old Shanghai cabarets and galas. On the mezzanine level is a small but fascinating gallery chronicling the hotel's past.

The south building, formerly the Palace Hotel (and now the Swatch Art Peace Hotel), was built in 1906. The north building, once the Cathay Hotel, built in 1929, is more famous. It was known as the private playroom of its owner, Victor Sassoon, a wealthy landowner who invested in the opium trade. Sassoon lived and entertained his guests in the copper penthouse. The hotel was rated on a par with the likes of Raffles in Singapore and the Peninsula in Hong Kong. It was the place to stay, see, and be seen in old Shanghai. Noël Coward wrote Private Lives here.