10 Days in Jiaozuo

The city museum orients the coal-and-tai chi province town; rest well, the mountain days start early tomorrow.

1. jiaozuo city museum

About 30 km from the city, the red sandstone gorge runs cool and narrow all year; stay in the village inside the gate to catch the early quiet. Yuntai entered the first batch of UNESCO Global Geoparks in 2004.

1. jiaozuo hongshixia

The cascade drops 314 meters in the wet season; the spring terraces and pool stairways below fill the rest of the day at walking pace.

1. jiaozuo yuntaishan

The cableway climbs toward the 1,297.6-meter summit tied to Wang Wei's festival poem; the glass walkway on the shoulder adds vertigo to the view. Down and back into Jiaozuo by evening.

1. jiaozuo zhuyufeng

A quieter arm of the geopark, stairways beside a green river; macaques in the trees, cooler air than the main valley in summer.

1. jiaozuo qinglongxia

Fenglin's high meadows and stone arches on the northern side; pair the afternoon with the long green lake at Qingtianhe in Boai, nicknamed the Three Gorges of the North.

1. jiaozuo fenglinxia
2. jiaozuo qingtianhe

The Wenxian village keeps the ancestral halls of the Chen family, whose 17th-century head Chen Wangting systematized the art; UNESCO inscribed tai chi on the intangible heritage list in December 2020. Try a morning class if the schools take visitors.

1. jiaozuo chenjiagou

The temple complex at Wuzhi, ordered built in 1723 to oversee the Yellow River works, takes the morning; the afternoon stays slow in the city before the side days.

1. jiaozuo jiayingguan

An honestly labeled side day — Luoyang lies about 100 km southwest, an hour and a half by intercity rail; the river-cliff grottoes and the old town fill a long day.

1. luoyang

Another labeled side day — the provincial capital is about 40 minutes away by intercity rail; the provincial museum's bronzes and the old railway quarter close the trip, with onward HSR from Zhengzhou.

1. zhengzhou