Chongqing is a city best seen after dark, when the hillside architecture reads as layers of light stacked on top of each other. This tour covers the three sights that make that case.

Hongyadong is the one you’ve seen in photographs. An eleven-storey complex built in the traditional Tujia stilt-house style, clinging to the cliff above the Jialing River and lit up in amber every evening. It draws a crowd, so we time the visit to catch the lights coming on before the peak crush, and your guide knows the viewpoints across the bridge where you can actually photograph it whole.

From there you’ll walk through Jiefangbei, the Liberation Monument square at the centre of the shopping district, where the 1940s victory monument now stands surrounded by glass towers. The night finishes on the Liangjiang cruise, a roughly one-hour loop out to the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, passing beneath the bridges Chongqing is known for with the whole skyline turning around you.

Chongqing’s food is worth building time around, tell your guide if you’d like a hotpot recommendation near the drop-off point.