Luxury hotels in Taipei

Taipei guide

Taipei: Taipei 101, night markets and Jiufen

The view from the tower, the National Palace Museum's treasures and the lantern-lit hills of Jiufen.

Taipei 101, once the world's tallest building, is the city's most cited landmark, with an observation deck and a giant tuned mass damper inside; the Elephant Mountain trail gives the best view of it at sunset. The National Palace Museum holds one of the world's greatest collections of Chinese imperial art.

At night, the markets of Shilin and Raohe are full of street food, and a bowl of beef noodles or soup dumplings is essential. Jiufen, an old mining town of teahouses and red lanterns in the hills, and the hot springs of Beitou are easy excursions.

The National Palace Museum

The National Palace Museum, in the hills of Shilin, holds nearly 700,000 objects from the Chinese imperial collections, and it is Taipei's most cited museum. Its most famous pieces, the Jadeite Cabbage and the Meat-shaped Stone, draw crowds, so we suggest arriving at opening or on late-opening evenings.

The collection rotates, with Song dynasty paintings and calligraphy shown only for short periods. A private guide helps make sense of the vast holdings, and the museum's restaurant serves dishes inspired by the treasures.

Beitou hot springs and Yangmingshan

Beitou, a hot spring district reached by Taipei's metro, is one of the city's most cited escapes: the steaming Thermal Valley, the Beitou Hot Spring Museum in a Japanese-era bathhouse and hotels with private hot spring baths.

Above it, Yangmingshan National Park offers volcanic landscapes, fumaroles, the calla lily fields of Zhuzihu in spring and the Qingtiangang grasslands. Autumn and winter are the most pleasant seasons for bathing.