14 Days in Pingliang

A gentle landing — willow ponds from the 1870s, vinegar-laced beef noodles, and an evening loop of the old lanes to set the fortnight's tempo.

1. pingliang liuhu park

Up the Stairway to Heaven on the 2,123-metre mountain, 5A since 2007, past Thunder Peak to the Emperor City's Taoist halls; imperial climbs appear in Han records from over 2,000 years ago.

1. pingliang kongtong mountain

The rear valleys and the Tanzheng lake reaches below the dam at an unhurried pace, with the museum's bronzes as an afternoon close.

1. pingliang kongtong mountain

Watch the Kongtong martial-arts school's morning drills, then a slow day of guokui bread, tea houses and craft shops under the mountain.

1. pingliang kongtong ancient town

Seventy kilometres southeast, the Great Cloud Temple hall protects fourteen relics in five nested layers of stone, bronze, silver and gold, found in 1964; the Royal Mother Palace on Hui hill and its Northern Wei grottoes complete the day. Overnight in Jingchuan.

1. pingliang daiyun temple
2. pingliang wangmu palace

The 509 main hall's seven standing Buddhas of about six metres in one vault, plus the smaller grottoes below the Royal Mother shrine — the southern member of a north-south pair, with its twin in neighbouring Qingyang, that gave this loess country its grotto fame.

1. pingliang south grottoes

Longquan temple's springs and cliff shrines, then the 3,200-year-old locust tree of Chongxin, broad enough to shade a village square; back to Pingliang by dusk.

1. pingliang longquan temple
2. pingliang ancient locust tree

West to Zhuanglang, where close to a million mu of terraces climb the loess — a half-century of hand-digging rewarded with potato flowers, corn and apple rows; overnight in the county town.

1. pingliang zhuanglang terraces

A full morning in the Yunya gorge's cliff shrines and forest paths, an afternoon of stream-side tea, and a second Zhuanglang night.

1. pingliang yunya temple

Over the Guanshan range to the Lotus Platform meadows and fir woods, then down to Huating's old Ankou kiln quarter, once a regional pottery town, for the night.

1. pingliang lianhua platform

An honest neighbouring-province day — three hours northwest, Xumishan's roughly 162 niches of Northern Wei through Tang carving under the 20-metre Tang Buddha, then back across the border for the night.

1. pingliang guyuan xumishan

An honest neighbour-city day to the south — Tianshui's Maijishan, the clay-sculpture treasury of more than 200 cliff niches stacked up a haystack-shaped rock; an early start or a night in Tianshui both work.

1. pingliang tianshui maijishan

A recovery morning on the road back, afternoon shopping for local vinegar and cured lamb, and a farewell walk among Liuhu park's willows.

1. pingliang liuhu park

One last lakeside hour, a final bowl of noodles, then the train or the express bus toward Xi'an or Lanzhou.

1. pingliang liuhu park