10 Days in Lishui

The weir, begun around 505, has lifted Ou river water for about 1,500 years and joined the first World Heritage Irrigation Structures list in 2014; easels line the painting town until dusk.

1. lishui guyan huaxiang
2. lishui tongji weir

Seventy km east — carving on the first national intangible list since 2006, roughly 330,000 county natives across more than 120 countries, coffee houses everywhere, and the gorge where young Liu Ji is said to have studied.

1. lishui qingtian stone carving
2. lishui shimen cave

Ninety km northeast, the 5A area's 170.8-m Dinghu Peak and the Yellow Emperor shrine that answers Shaanxi in the south; back through Heyang's thousand-year grey-tile courtyards.

1. lishui xiandu
2. lishui heyang old village

An honest neighbor-city day — Yandang belongs to Wenzhou, about 150 km southeast by expressway or an hour by rail; the Dalongqiu fall drops about 190 m in one sheet and the Lingfeng rocks change shape after dark.

1. wenzhou yandang mountain

Seventy-five km southwest — up to 700 layers over 1,200 vertical metres, sunrise at Jiuqu Yunhuan, the Ming-silver White Silver Valley and Kenggen's stone lanes.

1. lishui yunhe rice terraces

About 110 km south, China's only She autonomous county; an old temple at Yunzhong Daji beside a china fir said to be 1,500 years old, and the riverside old street at Dajun.

1. lishui jingning she township
2. lishui yunzhong daji

A long but scenic day — Qingyuan sits about three hours west of Jingning on mountain roads; the county keeps more than a hundred covered lounge bridges, and Rulong bridge carries a dated inscription of 1625.

1. lishui qingyuan lounge bridges

Two hours north of Qingyuan, the celadon firing technique joined UNESCO's intangible list in 2009 as its only ceramic entry; the museum shows the jade-green glazes and the Dayao kiln site keeps the Ming-Qing dragon kilns.

1. lishui longquan celadon
2. lishui dayao kiln site

About two hours east of Longquan, more than a hundred traditional villages survive in Songyang county; the old street keeps smithies at work, Yangjiatang's walls glow at dusk and Chenjiapu's stone houses hang on a cliff with a bookshop inside.

1. lishui songyang old street
2. lishui yangjiatang village
3. lishui chenjiapu village

Finish in Suichang — Tang-dynasty mining, a pit train into the adits and the memorial to magistrate-poet Tang Xianzu (1593-1598), overlapping The Peony Pavilion of 1598; then back to Lishui for the evening train.

1. lishui suichang gold mine
2. lishui tangxianzu memorial