3 Days in Pingyao

Enter through Yingxun Gate — the turtle's head, its two old wells the eyes — and read the layout from the ramparts, roughly 6.4 kilometres around and up to 12 metres high; the old town within sorts into four great streets, eight lesser ones and 72 twisting lanes, with the 18.5-metre market tower straddling South Street. Stay inside the walls in a courtyard inn, ideally a heated-brick room.

1. pingyao city walls
2. pingyao market tower

The county yamen — in use from the Northern Wei era onward, with its Yuan, Ming and Qing buildings intact — stages a daily court reenactment; the Confucian temple's main hall dates to 1163, and the city-god compound packs three shrines into one walled block. Book the evening performance of Impression Pingyao, the 90-minute walk-through show first staged in 2013.

1. pingyao county yamen
2. pingyao confucian temple
3. pingyao city god temple

Read the Rishengchang museum closely — founded 1823 as China's first draft bank, it ran its transfer network on coded poem-phrases that acted as anti-forgery keys — then taxi the 6 kilometres southwest to Shuanglin temple, where 2,052 painted clay figures crowd the halls; return for the light-show projection on the south gate or straight to the high-speed station.

1. pingyao rishengchang museum
2. pingyao shuanglin temple