7 Days in Pingliang

Land easy — willow ponds from General Zuo's 1870s planting, a noodle lunch, and dusk among the old town's shopfronts below the mountain.

1. pingliang liuhu park
2. pingliang kongtong ancient town

Up the stone Stairway to Heaven on the 2,123-metre mountain, 5A since 2007, through the Thunder Peak ridge to the Emperor City's Taoist halls; Han records over 2,000 years old already note imperial climbs here.

1. pingliang kongtong mountain

A slower day in the rear valleys and along the Tanzheng lake below the dam, with a morning martial-arts demonstration in the old town and the museum's bronzes to close.

1. pingliang kongtong mountain

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

1. pingliang daiyun temple
2. pingliang wangmu palace

The 509 main hall of the South Grottoes lines up seven standing Buddhas about six metres tall in one vault, the twin of the famous Northern Grottoes across in neighbouring Qingyang; then Chongxin's Longquan temple springs before returning north.

1. pingliang south grottoes
2. pingliang longquan temple

An honestly labelled neighbouring-province day, about three hours northwest into Ningxia — the Xumishan grottoes hold some 162 carved niches from Northern Wei through Sui and Tang, with the great 20-metre Tang Buddha of the Dafolou, the Great Buddha Loft.

1. pingliang guyuan xumishan

A last willow-shaded walk in Liuhu park, a bowl of beef noodles with local vinegar, then the train or the express bus east.

1. pingliang liuhu park