Experience the best of Kunming

Kunming stands about 1,900 metres above sea level on the Yunnan plateau, and its mild, sunny climate has earned it the name Spring City. Lake Dian, the largest lake in Yunnan, lies just south of the centre. Green Lake Park and Yuantong Temple, a Buddhist temple built around a pond with a pavilion in its middle, are in the heart of town, while the Western Hills rise over the lake with the cliffside Dragon Gate.

About eighty kilometres south-east, the Stone Forest at Shilin is a landscape of grey limestone pillars and part of the South China Karst World Heritage area. Dongchuan, to the north, has hillsides of red earth that glow in photographs. The Dounan flower market is one of the biggest in Asia, and in winter gulls arrive from Siberia to feed around the city's lakes. Dali and Lijiang lie further west.

Rice noodles define the table, above all crossing-the-bridge noodles, in which raw ingredients are slipped into a bowl of scalding broth at the table. Yunnan also supplies wild mushrooms, ham, goat cheese, fried flowers and tea from Pu'er, and its coffee is grown in the south of the province.