14 Days in Huaibei

Land, climb the 340-meter hill through the Xiantong temple gate — first recorded in the Western Jin year 284 — and take the evening market streets.

1. huaibei xiangshan park

The museum doubles as the Grand Canal gallery with the Liuzi finds; Suixi's stone street, a few hundred meters of early-Republican shopfronts, fills the afternoon.

1. huaibei city museum
2. huaibei shiban street

The 1999 dig that bared a Song stone wharf and Tang-Song shipwrecks put Liuzi on the Grand Canal's 2014 World Heritage list; linger over the kiln-wares from a dozen historic kilns.

1. huaibei liuzi canal site

A coal-subsidence lake turned wetland park, 20 minutes from downtown — boardwalks, waterfowl and a long unhurried lunch.

1. huaibei nanhu wetland

About 35 km south, Linhuan pours teahouse tea beside walls rammed over 2,000 years ago; the December 1948 campaign headquarters at Wenchang Palace sits in the same town.

1. huaibei linhuan old town

December 1948 was the Shuangduiji phase of the Huaihai campaign — the memorial hall and cemetery record it plainly; the village lanes around are quiet.

1. huaibei shuangduiji memorial

A slow day — morning steps on Xiangshan and a canalside afternoon before the second block.

1. huaibei xiangshan park

The mining park explains the pits that filled the city's lakes; at Liuyuan village, Ming-Qing pomegranate trees — some centuries old — still set fruit in the autumn.

1. huaibei mining park
2. huaibei sijiliuyuan

The newest of the subsidence lakes sits at Duji's edge with a boardwalk loop; Longji's wooded ridge makes an easy afternoon climb a short hop east.

1. huaibei shuoxi lake
2. huaibei longji mountain

An honest cross-province day, about an hour by rail north — the Lion Mountain Chu-king tomb and its terracotta guard at the Han-Culture park.

1. xuzhou han culture scenic area

Lakeside recovery — an easy loop and a long lunch before the forest day.

1. huaibei nanhu wetland

Labeled honestly — the forest park lies across the border in Xiao County, Suzhou prefecture — wooded ravines and a temple courtyard lunch before the short ride back.

1. suzhou anhui huangcangyu

A second honest neighbor day — Yunlong Lake's causeways first, then the old merchant courtyards of Hubu Hill, back by the evening train.

1. xuzhou yunlong lake
2. xuzhou hubu hill

A market breakfast, a last lap of Xiangshan's steps and the train out.

1. huaibei city markets