Experience the best of Taichung

Taichung lies on a broad plain in central Taiwan, with the central mountains rising to the east and the Taiwan Strait to the west. It is one of the island's largest cities. The Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, designed by Toyo Ito, is a curving concrete structure, and the Calligraphy Greenway is a ribbon of gardens leading through downtown. The Rainbow Village, a cluster of small houses painted in bright colours by a veteran soldier, draws visitors.

The Gaomei Wetlands on the coast are known for their sunsets and a row of wind turbines, and the National Museum of Natural Science is a large museum with a botanical garden. Fengjia Night Market is a long maze of food stalls near the university. In the hills to the east lie tea farms, hot springs and fruit orchards, and the mountain resort areas of Sun Moon Lake and the high pass of Hehuanshan are within reach.

Bubble tea, the pearl milk tea drink, is said to have been invented in Taichung in the 1980s, and sun cakes, flaky pastries with malt-sugar filling, are a local gift. Street food includes fried chicken cutlets, oyster omelettes and stinky tofu. The climate is subtropical, with warm winters and hot, humid summers broken by spring plum rains.