In Tainan the beef for the soup never sees a freezer

Breakfast in Tainan can be a bowl of beef soup, and the point is beef that has never been frozen. According to Mayor Huang Wei-che, cattle are processed at the Shanhua Meat Market and delivered straight to the shops. The Michelin Guide notes that Shun Te Beef Soup in Syuejia takes beef from the slaughterhouse three times a day and simmers its broth of bones and tendons for up to eight hours. The raw beef is sliced thin and laid in the bowl, and a ladle of boiling broth cooks it where it lies.

Wa-gui, savoury rice cakes steamed in small bowls, is usually cut with a bamboo spatula and eaten with thick soy sauce. Shrimp rolls are fried to order, and eel noodles are stir-fried over high heat in a sweet-sour sauce. Roadside stalls often sell winter melon tea. Around the Lantern Festival, Yanshui District to the north sets off its beehive fireworks.

The alleys of Tainan's West Central District change width without warning. They open into a temple forecourt, then narrow until there is only room to pass sideways, with walls slightly out of true and shop signs pointing every which way. The street plan still follows the old city: the line of the Qing-era city wall, the Five Canals that once ran down to the harbour, and the markets and shops that grew up along them. Shennong Street was part of that canal district.

Chihkan Tower stands on the site of Fort Provintia, built by the Dutch, and its red-brick foundations are still there. Across Yongfu Road is the Official God of War Temple, and in the lane beside it the Grand Matsu Temple. A little further south is the Confucius Temple, with a plaque over the gate naming it the first school in Taiwan.

West of the old city is Anping. In the 1620s the Dutch East India Company built Fort Zeelandia here and traded deerskins, sugar and silver from it. In 1662 Koxinga besieged the fort and the Dutch left; it passed to the Zheng family, then to the Qing, and then fell out of use. What survives at Anping Old Fort is a stretch of red-brick wall. Nearby, Anping Tree House was once a trading company's warehouse, and banyan roots now cover its walls and roof.