TOMFORD

I find the Chongqing skyline's geographic layout similar to that of Shanghai. Is there a good hotel in Chongqing that gives that similar Bund view in Chongqing?

hkskyline

Chongqing is not flat like Shanghai, and it doesn't have a set of historic lowrises along the waterfront either. The best views are across the river from the cable car.

anacapamalibu

Nanshan Park view platform

sinoflyer

Chongqing, gritty, one of the least likeable cities in China. Yuck. Agreed that the cable car has nice views, but it's more blah than special. The south bank of the city is mostly residential, and the Crowne Plaza that theoretically is located in the right place for great views is unfortunately blocked by other nondescript towers. On the riverfront are several rows of restaurants, but they mainly cater to the local palate. On the traditional city side, the gray slummy tenements descend steeply from the highrises toward the Yangtze before ending abruptly at a concrete embankment. This is not a tourist town.

TOMFORD

Thanks all for the info. I am not going there by choice to vacation. Have to be there for some meetings and want to stay at a hotel with a good view. Not a fan of cable cars, I find them quite scary.

jiejie

+1,000,000 and the rest of the description is spot on. Said it before a few years ago on my travelogue thread, and will say again "Best view of Chongqing is in the rear view mirror of your car or from an airplane window as you head.....anywhere else."

Chongqing air is usually either so smoggy or so foggy that there usually isn't much of a view anyway. I'd go for convenience to your business meetings as the priority criteria.

painintheuk

<snip>

I actually really enjoyed Chongqing despite being VERY under the weather, but having talked with others who have spent much more time there, I agree with the above quote. There are great views a few hours out of town (which I couldn't make it to), but I would enjoy some of the non-view parts of the city.

Enjoy!

sinoflyer

LOL

It is really an ugly city. I went to search my photo archives, because I remembered photographing quite an abomination of a skyscraper located right on the south bank. Lo and behold, it's actually a Sheraton, and it's got nice views of the city across the Yangtze.

TOMFORD

Those look like a lesser version of KL's Petronas towers.

anacapamalibu

Towers gold and interior all gold.
Must have copied that tower in Manhattan.

sinoflyer

... and also doubled down on the Chrysler Building over on Lexington. I find this Chongqing tower grotesque and tasteless, but I can also imagine 50 years from now, when the Chinese have learned something about zen and graceful design, that art historians will go ga-ga over this like people do now to the chinoiserie of San Francisco Chinatown.

Here are a couple more pictures. A little surprising for me, but my mind was so preoccupied with work on that trip that, if I didn't have these pictures, I would not have remembered that this was a Sheraton.





Christmas tree, gilded hippos, and "Las Vegas All Night Party Town" (what that sign says). Nevermind the Great Proletarian Revolution happened.

ksandness

I was in Chongqing in 1990, before all the skyscrapers were built, and it was REALLY dirty and rundown then. (We had already been to Beijing and Xian, so we had some points of comparison.)

I was part of a group form an American college scoping out potential sister schools. The one we were visiting was on the outskirts of the city, and if we wanted to make an independent trip into town (as opposed to a tour organized by the school and taken in their van), the only option was an ancient bus with half its windows missing.

The school, too, was extremely rundown and ill-kept, with unrepaired broken windows in several buildings, but there was a sparkling new pavilion near an artificial pond on campus. Its purpose was unclear.

We were told that the central government deliberately underfunded Chongqing due to its role as Chiang Kai-shek's wartime capital. Perhaps this has changed, now that the World War II generation is no longer in charge.

anacapamalibu

Original design much nicer..






Built mini WTC for good measure.

anacapamalibu

Sheraton is down with the bling.