Nanjing is huge and a thorough visit of all its sights would take several days. The downtown area comprises three main focal points and offers good shopping and dining as well as a few fascinating relics of the city's turbulent pre-1949 history. The north of the city takes in the enormous Xuanwu Hu Park and the Yangzi River area, while to the west are a number of smaller parks, including the Ming Chaotian Palace and the Memorial to the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre. The east and the south contain some of the best-preserved relics of Nanjing's mighty Ming city wall , as well as the excellent Nanjing Museum . The final area - and the most interesting of all for tourists - is the green hill beyond the city walls to the east of the city, Zijin Shan , with its wealth of historical and cultural relics. If you only have a day or two to spare, you should at least try and see Zijin Shan, the Nanjing Massacre Museum, the city wall and the Tianchao Palace, the former seat of government under both the nineteenth-century Taipings and the Nationalists.