5 Days in Datong

Give the 2001-listed site its due — 45 major caves, 51,000-plus figures and the 13.7-metre open-air Buddha of Cave 20 — then the Northern Wei holdings of the city museum.

1. datong yungang grottoes
2. datong museum

The 1038 sutra hall, the 1,559-square-metre main hall of 1140, Shanhua's Jin-era pavilions, and the 45.5-metre glazed screen of 1392 raised for prince Zhu Gui.

1. datong huayan temple
2. datong shanhua temple
3. datong nine dragon screen

Morning ride on the restored 7.2-kilometre Ming circuit begun in 1372, then east to Yunzhou for the dormant cones — more than 30 of them — and the daylily fields.

1. datong city walls
2. datong volcano cluster

The temple raised around 491 on beams and stilts some 50 metres above the gorge floor, then the 2,016-metre Tianfeng ridge of the Northern Peak. Overnight Hunyuan.

1. datong hanging temple
2. datong hengshan

An honestly labelled Shuozhou day — the pagoda went up in 1056 without a single nail, 67.31 metres of dougong brackets, about 75 km south of Datong; return for the evening train.

1. shuozhou yingxian wooden pagoda