Kunming, spring all year round

Yunnan's capital sits on a plateau at around 1,890 metres, high enough that summers stay mild and winters rarely bite, which is how Kunming earned its nickname, the Spring City. The proof is in the parks. Every winter, thousands of black-headed gulls migrate down from Siberia and settle on Green Lake, right in the centre, where retirees feed them, play mahjong under the willows and dance in improvised orchestras. Nearby, Yuantong Temple drops downhill instead of climbing it, a rare layout with an octagonal pavilion in the middle of a carp pond, and the bronze Golden Temple on Mingfeng hill was cast in 1671 by the warlord Wu Sangui.

An hour and a half southeast, the Stone Forest of Shilin is the reason many people come: three hundred square kilometres of grey limestone pillars, some thirty metres tall, weathered out of an ancient seabed and woven through with paths, ponds and Sani legends. Closer to town, the Western Hills rise above Dianchi Lake and a series of tunnels carved by Taoist monks lead to the Dragon Gate, hanging over the water with the whole lake spread below.

Kunming eats well. The signature dish is guoqiao mixian, crossing-the-bridge rice noodles, served as a bowl of scalding chicken broth sealed under a film of oil, into which you drop raw ham, quail egg, chrysanthemum petals and noodles at the table. Add wild mushrooms in the summer rains, rose-petal cakes, Pu'er tea and Yunnan coffee from Pu'er and Baoshan. As the gateway to Dali, Lijiang and Xishuangbanna, Kunming is where most journeys into southwest China begin.