Originally Posted by
jehflyer
Thank you for the info.
I guess I will take the car: time appears a trade-off (but with traffic who knows) and schedule is not that convenient.
I was looking forward to the bullet train experience but will get that-I hope- going from Shanghai to Nanjing.
While time spent on the way down might be a wash due to the traffic variable on the way to the train station (i.e. advisable to leave hotel ~35 minutes before departure), 80 minutes door-to-door on the return is conceivable.
The main advantages of the train:
1) reliability (i.e. fog and traffic are non issues)
2) comfort
3) cost
If you go with the train option, you might want to line up your ticket to Tanggu ahead of time, and buy the return from one of the ticket machines upon arrival (switching to earlier train is fairly easy).