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April is peony month, which means flowers and a full city
Luoyang has grown peonies for fifteen hundred years and every park is full of them for a few weeks in April — along with everyone else in Henan. Rooms double in price and the trains fill. If you want the flowers, book beds and tickets a month ahead and go on a weekday. If you want the caves and the temples in peace, come in late September or October instead: the same city, half the people, better walking weather.
Sleep inside the walls; the town is worth the evening, not the day
Coaches from Taiyuan arrive around ten and leave by four, and between those hours the main streets are a souvenir corridor. Before and after, the lanes belong to the people who live in them. Stay in a courtyard guesthouse inside the walls — most have kang beds and a rooftop — and plan the wall walk and the quiet lanes for early morning or the hour before dark. Winter rooms can be cold in a courtyard, so ask about heating before you book.
Sleep one night on Gulangyu and watch the day-trippers leave
Between ten and five the island's lanes are shoulder to shoulder. After the last ferries go, several hundred colonial villas, a few hundred residents and you have the place to yourselves, and it is the best evening in the city. Guesthouses are in old villas, rooms are small, and everything you bring you carry up the hill yourself. Book ahead in October and November, the best weather of the year here.
Stay a night in the old town instead of day-tripping from Shanghai
The train from Hongqiao takes 25 minutes, which is why most people come at ten and leave at six — exactly the hours the old town is busiest. A night in a guesthouse near Pingjiang Road buys you two quiet halves of the day: the canals at dusk with the lanterns on, and the gardens at opening before the first coach. Suzhou station sits on the north edge of the old town, so you can walk in with your bag.
Stay in the Former French Concession and give the Bund one evening
The skyline is worth an hour at dusk, and hotels beside it charge for the privilege of being there. The city you will actually enjoy walking is the Concession: plane trees, lane houses, coffee, and a metro station every few blocks. Base yourself around Wukang Road or Jing'an, walk to the Bund after dinner, cross the river for the reverse view, and come back. Zhujiajiao and Suzhou both work as half-day escapes from the same base.