5 Days in Fuyang

The city museum shows the finds from the 1977 excavation of the Han tomb of the Marquis of Ruyin at Shuangguidui, including astronomical dials among the oldest known. Finish on the Kuixing tower at the old city corner.

1. fuyang museum
2. fuyang kuixing tower

The lake northwest of the city is where Su Shi served as magistrate in 1091 and where Ouyang Xiu retired and died in 1072; pavilions and causeways trace the Song literary past. Walk the Shaying riverfront for the evening lights.

1. fuyang yingzhou west lake
2. fuyang shaying riverfront

An hour or so south, Yingshang county holds the 5A-rated Balihe wetland park, laid out on land that flooded regularly before the 1990s, and a riverside old street honouring Guan Zhong, the Qi chancellor born here who died in 645 BC.

1. fuyang balihe scenic
2. fuyang guanzhong old street

An honest neighbour day, about half an hour apart by HSR on the Shangqiu-Hangzhou line. Bozhou, hometown of Cao Cao (155-220), keeps his underground troop-tunnel network under the old town, several kilometres of passage, plus the carved Huaxilou stage and the Hua Zu temple for the physician Hua Tuo (c. 140-208); back to Fuyang by evening.

1. bozhou

The seven-storey brick Wenfeng Pagoda stands near the old city's waterways; a market breakfast of pillow-shaped zhenmo bread follows, then the HSR from Fuyang West for onward trains.

1. fuyang wenfeng pagoda
2. fuyang city markets