10 Days in Yuncheng

The salt lake spread along the city's southern edge covers about 132 km2 and has been worked for some 4,600 years — the dense brine holds a swimmer up the way the Dead Sea does. The Tang-dynasty Salt-Pool God Temple on the shore records the trade that built this city.

1. yuncheng salt lake
2. yuncheng chishen temple

The city museum sorts the prefecture's story — salt, bronze and the Guan Yu cult — into a morning; the rest of the day belongs to the old-town markets, where Shanxi noodles and mutton soup make the standing lunch order.

1. yuncheng city museum
2. yuncheng city markets

South of town, the ancestral temple to general Guan Yu — founded in 589, rebuilt after a 1702 fire — is the largest of its kind, and the family temple at nearby Changping village, where Guan Yu was born, makes a natural pair for the day.

1. yuncheng haizhou guandi temple
2. yuncheng changping guandi ancestral temple

About two hours southeast to Ruicheng for the Yuan-dynasty Taoist monastery whose murals cover more than 1,000 m2, the Procession of Immortals in the main hall alone running almost 100 m. The whole complex was moved some 25 km uphill in 1959-1964, ahead of the Sanmenxia reservoir. Overnight in Ruicheng.

1. yuncheng yongle palace

A second Ruicheng day along the river — the Dayudu ferry slopes and gardens where the water slows, then the Xihoudu site near Fenglingdu, where burned-bone layers date human activity back roughly 1.8 million years. Return to the city over the Zhongtiao hills.

1. yuncheng dayudu
2. yuncheng xihoudu site

An hour southwest to Yongji, where the rebuilt Guanque Tower rises 73.9 m above the river plain — Wang Zhihuan's climb-above poem is cut at its base — the Pujin Ford displays four giant iron oxen cast in 724 to anchor an old pontoon bridge, and the Pujiu Temple keeps the Yingying echo pagoda of the play Romance of the Western Chamber.

1. yuncheng guanque tower
2. yuncheng pujin iron oxen
3. yuncheng pujiu temple

The Wulao Peaks south of Yongji lift a national forest park of stone stairs, hanging walkways and a summit of five craggy "old men"; a cableway shortens the climb. Overnight in Yongji or back over the hills to the city.

1. yuncheng wulao peak

North to Wanrong county, where the Feiyun Tower of the Dongyue temple is a fully timbered tower about 23 m tall in its Ming-built, Qing-repaired form (the present shape fixed by the 1746 restoration), and the Li family courtyard — a merchant fortune begun in the Daoguang era of the 1820s — mixes Shanxi courtyards with a European-style brick facade. Back to the city for the night.

1. yuncheng feiyun tower
2. yuncheng lijia courtyard

Honestly labeled — Xi'an, not Yuncheng, and it has its own pages on this site. About an hour and a half southwest by HSR from Yuncheng North: many travelers make this their exit day, but a circuit of the Ming city wall by bicycle and a bowl of Xi'an noodles fit comfortably before an evening train back.

1. xian city wall

A last morning on the salt lake boardwalks when the light is low, a standing order of noodles and mutton soup for lunch, then the HSR from Yuncheng North — Xi'an, Taiyuan and Zhengzhou all connect.

1. yuncheng salt lake
2. yuncheng city markets