5 Days in Shiyan

Settle into the city that grew around the Second Automobile Works from 1969; the museum covers the truck-era story and the archaeology behind the water-diversion project, then a short forest walk on Niutou Hill.

1. shiyan shiyan museum
2. shiyan niutoushan forest park

The HSR link (opened 2019) reaches the mountain in under half an hour; building ran from 1412 under the Yongle Emperor and the 1994 UNESCO listing covers the complex — Purple Cloud Palace of 1413 and the Nanyan halls on their cliff ledge.

1. shiyan wudang mountain
2. shiyan nanyan palace

A full mountain day past the 72 peaks to Tianzhu Peak at 1,612 m, where the gilded bronze Golden Hall — cast in 1416 and hauled up piece by piece — crowns the summit; overnight at the mountain town or back in Shiyan.

1. shiyan wudang golden summit

North-east about 100 km to the dam first finished in 1973 and raised to a 176.6-m crest — head of the South-North Water Diversion's Middle Route, whose 1,432-km main canal began sending water toward Beijing and Tianjin in December 2014; walk the crest, then a shoreline stop on the reservoir.

1. shiyan danjiangkou dam
2. shiyan danjiangkou reservoir

In Yunyang district, the Xuetangliangzi site where archaic human skulls found in 1989, 1990 and 2022 are dated to about a million years ago, and the hillside of Qinglongshan where dense clusters of dinosaur egg fossils came to light from 1995; evening HSR from Shiyan East.

1. shiyan yunxian man site
2. shiyan qinglongshan dinosaur eggs