10 Days in Yongzhou

A commandery by 111 BC, Lingling keeps the flagstoned Liuzi Street with its temple to Tang writer Liu Zongyuan, exiled here ten years (805-815) and author of the Eight Records of Yongzhou. The Ming-dynasty Huilong pagoda stands by the Xiao River.

1. yongzhou liuzi temple
2. yongzhou lingling ancient city
3. yongzhou huilong pagoda

The Chaoyang Yan grotto carries cliff inscriptions from the Tang onward; Ping Island marks where the Xiao joins the Xiang, the landscape behind the word "xiaoxiang". The city museum puts the basin's finds in order.

1. yongzhou chaoyang yan
2. yongzhou ping island
3. yongzhou city museum

South to Shuangpai county for the Yangmingshan forest park — in late April and May, tens of thousands of mu of wild azaleas; otherwise streams and the mountain temple make an easy circuit. Overnight on the southbound road, in Ningyuan.

1. yongzhou yangmingshan

A short hop from the Ningyuan night's base. The mausoleum of the legendary Emperor Shun sits below Jiuyishan's peaks, still the site of official memorial ceremonies; the county town's Confucian temple was founded in 965.

1. yongzhou jiuyishan shun mausoleum
2. yongzhou ningyuan confucian temple

A long but straightforward run southwest to Jiangyong county, about two and a half hours, for the eco-museum documenting the women's syllabic script, national intangible heritage since 2006. Settle into a Jiangyong guesthouse.

1. yongzhou nushu eco museum

Shanggantang, settled by the Zhou clan for some 1,200 years, keeps Ming-Qing houses and a Song-era three-arch bridge; the Qianjiadong basin beyond it is the legendary homeland of the Yao people, a flat bowl of fields ringed by peaks.

1. yongzhou shanggantang village
2. yongzhou qianjiadong

Back through the city and west to Dongan county, where the Shunhuangshan forest park stacks waterfalls, bamboo ravines and a cool summit ridge — a working day of green between the museum towns.

1. yongzhou shunhuangshan

Honestly labeled — Guilin, not Yongzhou, and it has its own guide on this site. About two hours west by rail from Yongzhou station for a first look at the karst and the Li River landscape; return by evening or continue onward from Guilin if the journey ends here.

1. guilin li river

North to Qiyang, where the Wuxi brook meets the Xiang River and a cliff face carries more than 500 inscriptions — the centerpiece cut in 771 from Yuan Jie's essay in Yan Zhenqing's hand, the celebrated "three-perfections" rock.

1. yongzhou wuxi stele forest

A slow market morning — duck-egg noodles and the local sour fish soup — a last pass through the old city, then the train: Changsha to the north, Guilin to the west, both straightforward connections.

1. yongzhou city markets