14 Days in Sanmenxia

A soft landing — sunset on the levee north of town, barge lights on the water, an early night before the swans.

1. Yellow River levee walk

From November into March the whooper swans are here — over 10,000 counted along this river stretch in recent winters, arrived from Siberia; out of season, reeds and bird hides make a quiet walk.

1. Swan Lake National Wetland Park

Give the sunken village unhurried time — pits six-odd metres down, a dwelling style locals put at some 4,000 years, paper-cuts and opera in the folk courtyards; stay for a loess-country dinner if you can.

1. Shanzhou Dikengyuan underground courtyards

Western Zhou tombs under glass — the 2,800-year-old jade-hilted iron sword billed as the country's earliest smelted-iron blade; the afternoon is free for the city's parks and a snack-street round.

1. Guo State Museum

About 75 km west, where Laozi is said to have set down the roughly 5,000-character Dao De Jing; 20 minutes by high-speed rail to Lingbao West and a taxi. Autumn visitors can bring back Lingbao apples.

1. Hangu Pass

Raised between 1957 and 1961, the first dam across the Yellow River, crest a little over 700 metres; walk out for the midstream Zhongliu Dizhu rock downstream — the proverbial pillar that outlasts the current.

1. Sanmenxia Dam

A mid-trip pause at the hot-spring resorts west of town; long soak, longer lunch, and the second half of the trip starts tomorrow.

1. Wentang hot springs

High-speed rail east to Mianchi in a quarter of an hour or so; the 1921 dig at Yangshao village opened modern Chinese archaeology and its painted-pottery culture ran about 7,000 to 5,000 years ago.

1. Yangshao Village site
2. Yangshao Culture Museum

Under an hour east of downtown, the Shihao segment of the old Xiaohan track won UNESCO listing in 2014 with the Silk Roads — cart ruts worn into rock; Du Fu passed this way in 759 and wrote his poem of the press-ganged village here.

1. Xiaohan Ancient Road (Shihao segment)

Honest cross-province travel, about an hour by car north across the river; the war-god temple at Xiezhou, begun in 589, and the salt lake locals call China's Dead Sea. Overnight in Yuncheng.

1. Xiezhou Guandi Temple
2. Yuncheng Salt Lake

In Ruicheng, an hour or so beyond Yuncheng, the Yuan-dynasty Daoist complex raised between 1247 and 1358 keeps murals over some 1,000 square metres; it was moved whole between 1959 and 1964 because the rising Sanmenxia reservoir would have drowned it. Drive back to Sanmenxia by evening — a long day.

1. Yongle Palace

Under an hour by high-speed rail east; about 100,000 Buddhist figures line the river cliff, UNESCO-listed since 2000 — west bank first, the east bank lawns after lunch, back for a late train.

1. Longmen Grottoes

One more wetland morning — swans if the calendar cooperates — then market rounds for Lingbao apples and dried river fish; a levee sunset closes the loop.

1. Swan Lake National Wetland Park
2. Yellow River levee walk

A last short soak or a market breakfast — whichever the train time allows — then the high-speed rail from Sanmenxia South.

1. Wentang hot springs