7 Days in Chuxiong

The prefecture museum sets out Yi history and bronze drums; the old Confucian temple stands a few streets east; Yiren Ancient Town, built in the mid-2000s, fills with food stalls and dance in the evening — the Torch Festival falls on the 24th day of the sixth lunar month.

1. chuxiong museum
2. chuxiong confucius temple
3. chuxiong yiren ancient town

The calendar park marks the traditional ten-month year of 36-day months with its observation courts; twenty kilometres northwest, Zixi's pine forest sits around 2,500 m with old camellias and hillside temple halls.

1. chuxiong solar calendar park
2. chuxiong zixi mountain

An hour east at Lufeng, the park opened in 2008 around an in-situ hall where Early Jurassic skeletons some 180 million years old still lie in the rock; the walkways and museum wing take most of a day.

1. chuxiong world dinosaur valley

A deep valley town in Lufeng, often called a thousand-year salt town — Ming and Qing merchant houses line the Longchuan river, with the old salt wells and the Wu family courtyard open to visitors; the slow lanes take an unhurried day.

1. chuxiong heijing ancient town

Two hours north to Yuanmou County, where two fossil teeth found in 1965 at Shangnabang defined Yuanmou Man, dated to about 1.7 million years; sleep in Yuanmou town.

1. chuxiong yuanmou man site
2. chuxiong yuanmou museum

Clay towers eroded into castles and columns at the Wumao and Langbapu sites, an hour's drive apart; late light gives them their colour, and the road southeast puts Wuding county town about 1.5 hours on.

1. chuxiong yuanmou tulin

The ridge above Wuding carries the Zhengxu temple courts, where tradition says a Ming emperor found refuge in the early 1400s, and a spring display of thousands of peony plants; the drive back to Chuxiong takes about 1.5 hours, leaving time for the afternoon train.

1. chuxiong wuding lion mountain