Kaohsiung, Taiwan's warm southern port

Kaohsiung is Taiwan with the volume turned down and the temperature turned up: a working harbour city of wide boulevards, palm shade and winters warm enough for a T-shirt. Start at Lotus Pond, where the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas stand on the water and tradition says you enter through the dragon's throat and leave through the tiger's mouth. The Spring and Autumn Pavilions and the huge statue of Xuantian Shangdi line the same shore, best walked in the hour before sunset when the lake goes copper.

The port itself is the other half of the city. Pier-2 Art Center has turned a run of disused dockside warehouses into galleries, murals, bike paths and design shops, with the light rail rolling past the water. From Gushan the little ferry crosses to Cijin Island in ten minutes — a sandbar of black sand beach, a squat white lighthouse, an old Matsu temple and a street of seafood stalls where you point at what you want and it comes back grilled. Back on the mainland, the metro station at Formosa Boulevard hides the Dome of Light, one of the largest stained-glass works anywhere, worth the detour on the way to dinner.

Evenings belong to the night markets: Liuhe for the tourist-friendly rows of papaya milk and grilled squid, Ruifeng for the version locals actually queue at. Outside the centre, the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum lines up its pagodas beneath an enormous seated Buddha, and Shoushan's macaques patrol the trails above the harbour. Kaohsiung rewards a slow two days — and it makes an easy base for Tainan, Kenting and the rest of southern Taiwan.