14 Days in Yueyang

One of the three great towers of the Jiangnan, rebuilt in 1880 as a pure-wood helmet-roofed structure about 19.4 m tall — the tower Fan Zhongyan invoked without visiting in his 1046 essay. Walk the lakeshore below, then eat along the Bianhe street.

1. yueyang tower
2. yueyang dongting lake
3. yueyang bianhe street

The Cishi pagoda by the lake is counted among Hunan's earliest brick pagodas, the Confucian temple keeps its Song-era hall, and the city museum lays out the region's bronze and porcelain finds. Evening back on the lakeshore.

1. yueyang cishi pagoda
2. yueyang confucian temple
3. yueyang city museum

Out to Junshan, an island of just 0.96 km2 in Dongting Lake — some 2,600 km2, the second-largest freshwater lake in China — with the two-consorts tomb, the speckled bamboo and the yellow-tea tastings of Junshan Yinzhen.

1. yueyang junshan island

Southwest of the city in Junshan district, Tuanhu holds one of the largest wild-lotus stands in Asia; in July and August the water goes white and pink for kilometers. Out of season the fish-farming ponds and village kitchens still justify the trip.

1. yueyang tuanhu lotus lake

Fifteen to twenty minutes north by HSR to Miluo, where the poet Qu Yuan drowned himself in 278 BC and where dragon-boat racing for the Duanwu festival took root — the festival entered UNESCO's intangible list in 2009. The riverside park gathers the ancestral hall and the exhibition halls.

1. yueyang quzi cultural park

In Miluo's northern hills, the town of Changle keeps an old main street and a custom of street "story parades" during Lantern Festival, listed as national intangible heritage; the sweet rice wine brewed here is the other local signature. Back to Yueyang for the night.

1. yueyang changle ancient town

An hour east of town, the Zhang clan has held this valley village for over 600 years since the Ming founder arrived — courtyards linked under one roofline, with Ming-Qing dwellings reported near 54,000 m2. Wear shoes that can take stone lanes.

1. yueyang zhangguying village

The East Dongting reserve off Junshan district is a wintering ground of international note — annual counts have logged 300-plus waterbird species, with six-figure totals of geese and ducks in good years. Between November and February the causeway observation points fill with scopes.

1. yueyang east dongting wetland

South to Xiangyin county for Liuzhuang, the farmhouse estate that statesman Zuo Zongtang built for himself in the 1840s as a private scholar-farmer, decades before his later career; the rooms hold his farming implements and library. A quiet county-town lunch on the way back.

1. yueyang liuzhuang

A slow day inside the city — South Lake's shoreline paths in the morning, the food lanes around the old quarter after lunch, and an early night before the outside days.

1. yueyang south lake
2. yueyang city markets

Honestly labeled — Changsha, not Yueyang, and the provincial capital has its own page on this site. About half an hour south by HSR: Orange Isle in the Xiang River, then the Hunan Museum's Mawangdui finds, with the evening back in Yueyang.

1. changsha orange isle
2. changsha hunan museum

Another honest outside day — Wuhan, about an hour north by HSR, with its own pages on this site. The provincial museum's Marquis Yi chime bells and the Yellow Crane Tower above the Yangtze fill a long day; back to Yueyang by evening.

1. wuhan provincial museum
2. wuhan yellow crane tower

A deliberate repeat — the lake at a different hour, the tower seen from the water on a short cruise if the schedule allows, and a long dinner through the Bianhe street stalls.

1. yueyang dongting lake
2. yueyang bianhe street

A last market breakfast — rice-flour buns and lotus-root dishes in season — then the train south or north: Changsha about half an hour, Wuhan about an hour, the airport connections beyond both.

1. yueyang city markets