5 Days in Taizhou

The Sui-era temple of 598 opens the valley — courtyard trees, the pagoda on the slope, and quiet guesthouse lanes nearby. Late afternoon on Chicheng hill at the town's edge, where the reddish crag caves look back down on the roofs.

1. taizhou guoqing temple
2. taizhou chicheng mountain

Up to the Shiliang gorge, where the stream dives under a stone span a few metres wide; tea terraces line the road. Continue to Huading, at 1,098 metres the county's high point, for cloud-sea odds in the cooler months.

1. taizhou shiliang waterfall
2. taizhou huading peak

South into Xianju county for the Shenxianju cliffs — two cable cars, cliffside plank paths, the Guanyin-style monolith and the Ruyi footbridge. Give it the whole day; the valley entrances sit about an hour from the county seat.

1. taizhou shenxianju

The Ming-Qing streets of Pantan keep the needle-thin "boneless" lanterns that entered the first national heritage list in 2006; workshops still bend them by hand. Gaoqian's courtyard rows sit a short ride away, all straight lines and carved lintels.

1. taizhou pantan old town
2. taizhou gaoqian village

East to Shitang — stone-roof houses stacked over the harbour and the 2000 millennium-sunrise monument — with Xiaoruo's painted houses one bay over. Late buses and trains run back to Taizhou's stations from Wenling.

1. taizhou shitang fishing town
2. taizhou xiaoruo village