14 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

A slow second day inside the walls — teahouses on Liuzi Street, the food lanes around the old city, and the evening lanterns along the Xiao River banks, when the riverside seating fills up.

1. yongzhou lingling ancient city
2. yongzhou city markets

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 base for a full mountain day: the mausoleum complex of the legendary Emperor Shun below the peaks, still the site of official memorial ceremonies, with the forest paths around it.

1. yongzhou jiuyishan shun mausoleum

A short day by design — the county town's Confucian temple, founded in 965, rewards a slow morning with its whole-stone carved columns and courtyards, then the ride back north to Lingling for the night.

1. 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

A morning among the terraced fields and camphor trees around the villages — the landscape the women's script grew out of — then the afternoon ride back to the city for a market dinner.

1. yongzhou shanggantang village
2. yongzhou city markets

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 — Dongjiang Lake belongs to neighboring Chenzhou, two and a half hours or so east, and has its own page on this site. A reservoir of famous clarity ringed by karst, with boat trips from the dam pier; return to Yongzhou by evening.

1. chenzhou dongjiang lake

Another honest outside day — Guilin, about two hours west by rail from Yongzhou station, with its own guide on this site. A first look at the karst and the Li River landscape; return by evening or continue onward from Guilin.

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