Guilin, where the mountains float

Guilin takes its name from the sweet osmanthus forests that perfume the city every autumn, and the trees are still here, lining the moat and dropping tiny gold flowers into the Two Rivers and Four Lakes waterway that loops through the centre past the twin Sun and Moon Pagodas. But it is the limestone people come for. Elephant Trunk Hill stands at the confluence of the Li and Taohua rivers with its stone trunk dipped in the water, and Solitary Beauty Peak rises straight out of the Ming-era Jingjiang Princes' City: 306 steps to a view over the whole karst plain.

The Li River cruise south towards Yangshuo is the classic day out, four or five hours drifting past Crown Cave, the Painted Hill of Nine Horses and the bend at Xingping printed on the back of the 20-yuan note, with water buffalo in the shallows and bamboo rafts poling between the peaks. Closer to town, Reed Flute Cave is a 240-metre walk through stalactite chambers lit in improbable colours, its walls still carrying ink inscriptions left by Tang-dynasty visitors. Seven Star Park hides more caves and a camellia hill.

Eat the way Guilin eats: a bowl of Guilin mifen, round rice noodles under braised beef, pickled long beans, fried peanuts and a ladle of dark spiced broth, ordered before eight in the morning at a shop with plastic stools. Autumn brings osmanthus wine and clear skies; spring brings the mist that turns the peaks into a hanging scroll. Guilin opens one of China's great landscapes, and makes a natural first chapter for a longer journey through the country.