Experience the best of Lanzhou

Lanzhou stretches for many kilometres along the Yellow River in a narrow valley, with the loess hills of north-west China rising on both sides. It grew as a crossing point on the Silk Road, and the Zhongshan Bridge, completed in 1909, is called the First Bridge over the Yellow River. A riverside park runs along the south bank, with the Mother River statue and promenades, and White Pagoda Hill looks over the city from the north bank.

The Gansu Provincial Museum is known for its Han dynasty and Silk Road relics. Further afield, the Bingling Temple grottoes, a series of Buddhist cave carvings in a Yellow River gorge, can be reached by boat across Liujiaxia Reservoir. The Hexi Corridor, the Silk Road route toward Dunhuang, leads north-west, while Labrang Monastery and the Tibetan grasslands of Gannan lie to the south-west.

Lanzhou beef noodles, hand-pulled in a clear broth with slices of beef, white radish, chilli oil and coriander, are the city's best-known dish, eaten for breakfast. Mutton, sweet lily bulbs and melons thrive in the dry climate, and rafts made from inflated sheepskins once carried goods on the river. Summers are warm and winters cold and dry, with spring and autumn the mildest.