Tainan

Tainan sits on the coast, but it is not a beach city. The shore west of Anping is a long, flat run of grey sand, lagoons and sandbars, with the Golden Coast and Yuguang Island the most visited stretches. People come here for the evening walk and the sunsets over the Taiwan Strait. The sea is warm in summer, but it is cloudy, the currents are strong, and swimming is often discouraged or forbidden. Visitors who want proper swimming beaches go to the far south of the island, a long day's journey, or swim in a hotel pool.

Food is the main reason many Taiwanese visit Tainan, and the city treats its snacks as heritage. Breakfast is fresh beef soup made with that morning's beef, or milkfish porridge. The rest of the day runs through danzai noodles, shrimp rolls, coffin bread, oyster omelettes, rice cakes and almond tofu, often at stalls that have made one dish for three generations. Cooking here is sweeter than in the north, and the shaved ice and fruit stands are serious too.

Eating happens around the temples, along Guohua and Minzu roads, and at the big weekend night markets on the edge of town. Old townhouse cafés and tea shops fill the lanes around Shennong Street. The city has little high-end or international dining, so this is a place for grazing from stall to stall, not for tasting menus.

Tainan was Taiwan's capital for more than two centuries, and it holds the island's deepest layer of history. The Confucius Temple was Taiwan's first school. Chihkan Tower stands on the site of a Dutch fort, and Fort Zeelandia and the Eternal Golden Castle in Anping recall the struggles between the Dutch, Koxinga and the Qing. Hundreds of temples crowd the old centre, among them the Grand Mazu Temple and the City God Temple, with their carved beams, door gods and plenty of incense.

Alongside them stand Japanese-era buildings such as the old Tainan District Court and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, as well as the banyan-wrapped Anping Tree House. South of the old centre, in the parkland of Rende District on the way to the high-speed rail station, the Chimei Museum has a large collection of European painting and violins in a grand neoclassical building.

Evenings in Tainan revolve around eating, not drinking. There is a small, likeable scene of cocktail bars, whisky bars and craft-beer rooms hidden in old townhouses around Shennong Street and the Haian Road area. They are good for a couple of quiet drinks. Clubs are few, and most of the city winds down by midnight. Anyone after a real night out takes the short train to Kaohsiung.

Most of Tainan stands on a flat, hot coastal plain, and its outdoor appeal is wetland, not mountains. To the north-west, Taijiang National Park takes in lagoons, salt pans and the mangrove channels at Sicao, where small boats glide under a tunnel of branches. Each winter the endangered black-faced spoonbill comes to the Qigu estuary, and the salt mountain and old drying fields make an odd, bleached landscape.

To the east the land rises into the low, forested foothills around Guanziling and the Zengwen reservoir. Real high-mountain hiking, at Alishan, is too far for a day. Cycling the riverside paths and the coast works well in winter, but summer heat cuts most outdoor time to the early morning.

Kaohsiung is under an hour away by train. It is a large port city with Lotus Pond's temples, the Pier-2 art district and a ferry to Cijin Island. Beyond it lie the Foguangshan monastery and its huge Buddha Museum, and the Hakka town of Meinong, known for oil-paper umbrellas. To the north, Chiayi is the gateway to the Alishan forest railway and has its own old timber-town streets. The temple town of Lukang is at the edge of an easy day by high-speed rail and road.

Closer to home, Tainan's own districts hold small old streets at Xinhua and Yanshui, the Japanese-era Wushantou reservoir and the Guanziling hot spring village.

Taiwanese culture is warm towards children, the city feels safe, and night markets with games, snacks and shaved ice are an easy evening out. Children can climb around the forts and the banyan-wrapped Tree House in Anping, ride a boat through the Sicao mangroves, and see the arms-and-armour and natural-history halls of the Chimei Museum. Little here is built specially for children, though. Summer heat is draining, pavements are crowded with parked scooters, and most sights mean a taxi between them. The nearest theme park and the big zoo are in Kaohsiung.

Tainan was built for scooters, and it shows. There is no metro. City buses are slow and infrequent, and the high-speed rail station is well outside town, joined to the centre by a shuttle train. The old core around the Confucius Temple, Chihkan Tower and Shennong Street can be walked, but pavements are broken up by parked scooters, shopfronts and steps. Anping and the Chimei Museum are a taxi or bus ride away. Most visitors combine walking, the public bike-share and plenty of taxis or ride-hailing. A scooter is the local answer, but only for confident riders.

Shopping in Tainan is small-scale and personal. The lanes around Shennong Street and Zhengxing Street hold independent shops selling Taiwanese design, ceramics, tea, indigo-dyed cloth and stationery from old townhouses. The Hayashi Department Store, a Japanese-era building from the 1930s with a small Shinto shrine on its roof, is a sight as much as a shop, and it stocks local crafts and foods. Night markets cover cheap clothes and trinkets, and malls and the big department-store chains handle everyday shopping. There is no luxury street, though, and anyone who comes for fashion will find little here.

Tainan is easy on a budget. Its famous snacks cost very little, and a full day of grazing through beef soup, noodles and shaved ice is cheap by any standard. Most temples and many historic sites are free or charge little. Hotels and guesthouses cost clearly less than in Taipei. Because there is no metro, taxis add up over a stay. Cocktail bars and the few upmarket restaurants charge at Western levels.

Tainan's most distinctive performances happen outdoors. On temple festival days and gods' birthdays, stages go up in front of the shrines for Taiwanese opera and glove puppetry, sometimes performed to near-empty plastic stools for the gods themselves. Temple processions add drum troupes, lion dances and the Eight Generals. The municipal cultural centre and a few small live houses host concerts and theatre, but there is little formal programme. Major opera, dance and orchestral performances happen at the large national arts centre in Kaohsiung, under an hour away.

Tainan's bathing draw lies in the hills east of the city at Guanziling, one of the few mud hot springs anywhere. Its grey, mineral-rich water fills the pools of the village's spa hotels, and a visit takes about an hour each way. In town, foot-reflexology and massage parlours are easy to find, and hotel spas are modest. The city has an unhurried, small-town rhythm, with long breakfasts, temple courtyards and slow afternoons in old townhouse tea rooms. Scooter noise and summer heat work against real rest in the centre.