14 Days in Hanzhong

Guhantai is where Liu Bang, enfeoffed King of Han in 206 BC, based himself; the museum keeps the Shimen Thirteen carvings moved here in the early 1970s, including the Shimen Song of AD 148.

1. hanzhong guhantai
2. hanzhong tianhan wetland park

The altar where Han Xin was made general in 206 BC, the old lotus pond by the Han river, and slow hours in the market lanes.

1. hanzhong baijiang altar
2. hanzhong lianhua park
3. hanzhong city markets

About 40 km west — the shrine raised by imperial decree in 263, and Zhuge Liang's tomb (181-234) under the pines of Dingjun Mountain.

1. hanzhong wuhou shrine
2. hanzhong wuhou tomb

The rebuilt plank road threads the Bao river gorge below the Shimen reservoir; the Eastern Han tunnel cut here around AD 63 is often called the world's earliest traffic tunnel.

1. hanzhong shimen plank road

About 30 km east — the tomb of Zhang Qian (d. 114 BC), whose two western missions opened the Silk Road, inscribed by UNESCO with the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor in 2014; the hillside orchards ripen late October.

1. hanzhong zhangqian memorial
2. hanzhong juyuan orange orchards

About 50 km east — seven wild crested ibises turned up here in 1981, and Cai Lun (paper of 105, death of 121) rests at Longting. Overnight in Yangxian to soften tomorrow's drive.

1. hanzhong ibis eco park
2. hanzhong cai lun tomb shrine

A slow mountain road north of Yangxian county town — a Qinling valley old town with stone lanes, well past the 2,000-metre ridgelines on the horizon. It is an honest 2.5 hours each way; return by evening.

1. hanzhong huayang ancient town

About two hours' drive south into the Micang hills — karst gullies, the twisty "dragon mountain" rock beds and pine-oak forest; an honest full day.

1. hanzhong liping forest park

A long day, about 200 km west on the Shaanxi-Sichuan-Gansu corner — the curved Huilongchang old street along the brook, made widely known by the 2014 TV series set here. Some stay the night in town.

1. hanzhong qingmuchuan ancient town

About 100 km north, Liuba pairs the sunken meadows of Zibai Mountain with the temple compound that honors Zhang Liang, the Han founding strategist.

1. hanzhong zibai mountain
2. hanzhong zhangliang temple

About 90 km east, Xixiang's cherry orchards bloom from mid-March into early April — outside the window the county's tea hills still make an honest stop.

1. hanzhong xixiang cherry valley

An honest neighbor day — the HSR south from Hanzhong reaches the Jianmen Pass country in under an hour, where Jiang Wei held the Three Kingdoms gate in 263, the very year of the Mianxian shrine.

1. guangyuan jianmenguan

North on the same line, about 70 minutes by HSR through the Qinling tunnels, to the old capital's museums and walls — the terminus of the corridor Zhang Qian's missions opened. Return by evening.

1. xian

A market breakfast of mianpi and cai doufu, a last walk along the Han river, then the HSR from Hanzhong — Chengdu about 2 hours, Xi'an about 70 minutes.

1. hanzhong city markets