5 Days in Pingyao

Come in by Yingxun Gate and take the walls before the light drops — 6.4 kilometres of rampart, gates named for the turtle's head and tail — then the south-gate projection show after dark; move into a courtyard inn and keep evenings for the lanes.

1. pingyao city walls

Morning under the 18.5-metre market tower and along South Street's shopfronts — beef and buckwheat wanto for lunch — then down into the underground vault of the Xieqingqing money house, tunnel-like cellars beneath the back courtyard.

1. pingyao market tower
2. pingyao xieqingqing vault

Catch the yamen's court reenactment before noon and read the magistrates' quarters at leisure, then the Confucian hall of 1163 and the three-shrines-in-one city-god compound — an afternoon of roofs, steles and court stories.

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

The Rishengchang museum rewards a slow read — coded poem-phrases as anti-forgery keys, a branch map of some 35 cities — and the armed-escort museum beside it tells the guards' side of moving silver; the night belongs to the 90-minute walk-through of Impression Pingyao.

1. pingyao rishengchang museum
2. pingyao armed escort museum

Southwest first for Shuanglin's 2,052 painted clay figures, then northeast to Zhenguo's Wanfo hall of 963, one of the oldest timber frames standing in China; back to town for beef to carry home and the high-speed station.

1. pingyao shuanglin temple
2. pingyao zhenguo temple