Chongqing is built on hills so steep that the usual rules of city planning don’t apply, and this tour is essentially a survey of what that produces.

The obvious example is Liziba Station, where Line 2 of the monorail runs directly through the sixth to eighth floors of a nineteen-storey apartment block. the building was designed around the track, with sound insulation so the residents above and below carry on as normal. There’s a viewing platform for the photograph, and your guide can get you on board if you’d rather ride through it.

The People’s Auditorium is the city’s other landmark oddity: a 1954 concert hall modelled on Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, with a domed roof and a colonnade, built with mid-century Western engineering underneath the traditional silhouette.

The afternoon is spent in Ciqikou, a Ming and Qing-era port town on the Jialing River now absorbed into the city. The main street is commercial and busy, but the side lanes still hold teahouses, courtyard houses and workshops, and the riverfront at the far end is quiet. It’s the best place on the tour for street food.