14 Days in Ningbo

The walled garden of Tianyi Pavilion, built between 1561 and 1566 by the retired minister Fan Qin, holds what grew to some 70,000 volumes at its Ming peak — the oldest private library surviving in China; the lake beside it makes the afternoon.

1. ningbo tianyi pavilion
2. ningbo yuehu lake

The riverfront opened as a treaty port in 1844, two decades before Shanghai's Bund, its church tower raised in 1872; the Qingan guild hall of 1853 faces the harbour quarter at the confluence of the three rivers.

1. ningbo old bund
2. ningbo sanjiang confluence
3. ningbo qingan guild hall

The Drum Tower marks the Tang-era walled town founded in 821; the afternoon goes to the canal-side food lanes of Nantang, long the market quarter outside the south gate.

1. ningbo gulou
2. ningbo nantang old street

The wooden hall of Baoguo, rebuilt in 1013, is the oldest surviving timberwork of the lower Yangtze; the restored county-seat quarter of Cicheng keeps yamen buildings, a Confucian temple and old lanes to the north.

1. ningbo baoguo temple
2. ningbo cicheng ancient town

Some 20 square kilometres of water about 15 km from town — three times the size of West Lake — with a park gathering the stone figures of Southern Song tomb ways on its shore.

1. ningbo dongqian lake
2. ningbo southern song stones

The Hemudu site, found in 1973, holds the remains of a village of some 7,000 years ago — pile dwellings and early rice — in a museum opened in 1993; in Yuyao, the old residence of the philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529) opens its courtyard to visitors.

1. ningbo hemudu site
2. ningbo wangyangming residence

About 40 km west, the river town keeps the old family houses of its best-known modern family — the main street lanes and the salt shop of the 1880s — visited as buildings and history, plainly told.

1. ningbo xikou

A second mountain day above Xikou — the temple area standing for over a thousand years, the stone terrace of Miaogao terrace with its 1920s villa, and the tall single-drop fall of Qianzhang rock on the way down.

1. ningbo xuedou mountain

Two old monasteries east of the city — Ayuwang, first raised in 282, and Tiantong, begun around the year 300, where the Japanese monk Dogen studied in the 1220s.

1. ningbo ayuwang temple
2. ningbo tiantong temple

South by rail to Ninghai — the water lanes and Ming-Qing houses of Qiantong, settled from the late Southern Song, and the old quarry galleries of Wushan, cut over centuries for building stone.

1. ningbo qiantong ancient town
2. ningbo wushan quarries

Down the Xiangshan coast to Shipu, among the country's best-known fishing ports — a harbour-gated old town of temples and steps, and, in season, the September opening of the fishing year.

1. ningbo shipu fishing port

An honestly labelled cross-city day — two hours by road to Zhoushan's Zhujiajian pier, then a short ferry to the island of Putuoshan, where a 33-m bronze Guanyin was raised in 1997 and three great monasteries work up the hillside.

1. ningbo putuoshan day

Another cross-city day, labelled as such — under an hour by rail to Shaoxing for the former home of the writer Lu Xun (1881-1936), the Song-era Shen garden and the old stone quarries of Donghu, back to Ningbo for the night.

1. ningbo shaoxing day

A last morning at the confluence parks, a bowl of noodles by the Bund quarter and the train or flight home from the old port.

1. ningbo sanjiang confluence