7 Days in Lishui

The weir, begun around 505, has raised Ou river water for about 1,500 years and made the first World Heritage Irrigation Structures list in 2014; the painting town opposite keeps its easels out to 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 in over 120 countries, espresso on every corner, and the Shimen Gorge where the 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, the Yellow Emperor shrine that answers Shaanxi's mausoleum in the south, and the Zhuantan stone-step crossing for the classic shot.

1. lishui xiandu

Seventy-five km southwest — up to 700 terrace layers over 1,200 vertical metres, sunrise at Jiuqu Yunhuan, then the Ming-silver White Silver Valley and Kenggen's stone hamlet; May-June flooding or early-October gold are the photogenic windows.

1. lishui yunhe rice terraces

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

1. lishui jingning she township
2. lishui yunzhong daji

About 80 km west, a county where more than a hundred traditional villages survive; the Ming-Qing street still keeps its smithies and herb shops, and Yangjiatang's rammed-earth walls turn gold at dusk.

1. lishui songyang old street
2. lishui yangjiatang village

Mining since the Tang dynasty with a pit train into the old adits, plus the memorial to magistrate-poet Tang Xianzu (1593-1598) whose years overlap The Peony Pavilion of 1598; return to Lishui station for the evening departure.

1. lishui suichang gold mine
2. lishui tangxianzu memorial