Experience the best of Yangzhou

Yangzhou grew rich as a trading hub on the Grand Canal, especially through the salt trade of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and its merchants built private gardens that survive today. Geyuan Garden, planted with bamboo, and He Garden, with covered walkways and rockeries, are among the best. The canal itself, part of a World Heritage listing, runs along the edge of the old city.

Slender West Lake, a long thin lake of willows, bridges and pavilions, is the city's best-known landscape, with a five-pavilion bridge and a small white dagoba. Daming Temple, on a hill to the north-west, is linked to the Tang monk Jianzhen, who sailed from here to Japan in the eighth century. Nanjing lies to the west, and Zhenjiang is across the Yangtze to the south.

Yangzhou fried rice with ham, shrimp and egg has been copied across the world, and local cooking belongs to the Huaiyang tradition, one of China's great cuisines, with dishes such as lion's head meatballs and steamed buns served with morning tea. A line by the Tang poet Li Bai about going down to Yangzhou in the third month of misty blossom makes spring the classic season.