14 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

On the Mingtiao ridge northwest of town stands the memorial complex to the legendary Emperor Shun, still the site of official ceremonies; the adjoining pines and stele courts make a quiet half day, with the markets for the evening.

1. yuncheng shundi mausoleum
2. yuncheng city markets

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. Overnight in Ruicheng again.

1. yuncheng dayudu
2. yuncheng xihoudu site

Over the hills 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. First Yongji night.

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. Second Yongji night or back 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

Northwest to the old prefectural town now called Xinjiang county — Jiangzhou in its day — where the Jiangzhou Hall, among the largest Yuan-era civic halls, anchors a drum-tower old town and the Longxing temple keeps its pagoda and Tang-dynasty stele inscriptions.

1. yuncheng jiangzhou hall
2. yuncheng longxing temple

Honestly labeled — across the Yellow River lies Sanmenxia, Henan, and it has no page of its own here yet. The Hangu Pass at Lingbao, where tradition sets Laozi writing the Dao De Jing, and the dam begun in the late 1950s that reshaped the river above it make a one-day pairing; return to Yuncheng by evening.

1. sanmenxia hangu pass
2. sanmenxia dam

Another honest outside day — Xi'an, about an hour and a half southwest by HSR from Yuncheng North, with its own pages on this site. A circuit of the Ming city wall by bicycle, the Muslim quarter's lanes and a bowl of Xi'an noodles, then the evening train back.

1. xian city wall

A deliberate unhurried day — the lake boardwalks in low light, a float in the brine if the pools are open, an afternoon among the tea and vinegar shops, and dinner on the standing order of noodles and mutton soup.

1. yuncheng salt lake
2. yuncheng city markets

A last market morning — steamed buns and the local vinegar to carry home — then the HSR from Yuncheng North: Xi'an about an hour and a half, Taiyuan and Zhengzhou on the same north-south trunk.

1. yuncheng city markets