Luoyang, Carved in Stone and Peonies

Luoyang was the capital of thirteen dynasties, and the city still measures itself against that memory. The proof is carved into a limestone gorge south of town: the Longmen Grottoes, where more than 2,300 niches were cut into the cliffs above the Yi River between the Northern Wei and the Tang. The Fengxiansi shrine holds the seated Vairocana Buddha, seventeen metres tall, a face tradition attributes to Empress Wu Zetian, and it is worth crossing the river at dusk to see the whole wall of Buddhas lit from the far bank.

East of the city, White Horse Temple claims to be the first Buddhist monastery founded on Chinese soil, in AD 68, and its grounds now include Indian, Burmese and Thai halls built by those countries. Guanlin Temple guards the head of the general Guan Yu among cypresses and stone lions. For a different kind of underground, the Museum of Ancient Tombs reassembles dozens of excavated burial chambers you can walk into, painted ceilings and all.

Time a visit for mid-April and the city turns pink and crimson for the peony festival, a flower Luoyang has cultivated since the Tang; Wangcheng Park and the National Peony Garden are the places to see it. Nearby, the reconstructed Mingtang and Tiantang halls mark the Sui and Tang palace city. Eat the water banquet, twenty-four soupy courses served in relentless sequence, and finish with beef soup at a street stall. Luoyang sits on the fast line between Xi'an and Zhengzhou, an easy addition to a Yellow River route through central China.