Experience the best of Pingyao

The city wall, about six kilometres round and dating from 1370, encloses a grid of grey-brick lanes, courtyard houses and shops with carved wooden doors, and visitors can walk along the top of the ramparts. In the nineteenth century Pingyao was a financial centre, and the first Chinese draft banks opened here. Rishengchang, the best known, can be seen in its original courtyard.

Outside the walls, Shuanglin Temple holds more than two thousand painted clay figures, some from the Ming dynasty and earlier, and Zhenguo Temple has a hall from the tenth century, one of the oldest timber buildings in China. Grand merchants' courtyards survive in nearby counties, and Taiyuan, the provincial capital, lies to the north.

Pingyao beef, salted and slow-cooked, is the local speciality, along with wheat noodles and the sharp, dark vinegar of Shanxi. Lacquerware is a local craft, and red lanterns light the lanes in the evening. Winters are bitterly cold, and the lanes are busiest from late spring to autumn.