Xi'an: where the Silk Road began and an emperor's army still stands

Xi'an was Chang'an, capital of thirteen dynasties and the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, and it has the artefact to prove it. About an hour east, under a hangar the size of an aircraft factory, Pit 1 of the Terracotta Army holds column after column of life-size infantry facing east exactly as they were buried in 210 BC — every face different, every topknot tied differently — and the strangeness only lands when you notice the unexcavated ranks still half in the earth behind them. Pit 3 was the command post; the two half-scale bronze chariots in the museum hall are the finest single objects on the site.

Back in town, Xi'an is one of very few Chinese cities still ringed by its complete Ming city wall — fourteen kilometres of it, wide enough to hire a bicycle on top and ride the whole circuit in ninety minutes, looking down on gate towers, willows and the moat. Inside sit the Bell and Drum Towers; just south of the walls rises the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, built to house the sutras the monk Xuanzang hauled back from India.

Then there is the Muslim Quarter, ten centuries of Hui community packed into the lanes behind the Drum Tower, where the Great Mosque is laid out like a Chinese temple, pagoda minaret and all, with Arabic calligraphy under the eaves. Arrive hungry: hand-slapped biang biang noodles, roujiamo stewed beef or lamb in a flatbread, yangrou paomo lamb soup with bread you crumble in yourself, persimmon doughnuts, cumin skewers over charcoal. Autumn is the kindest season here; the summer on the Guanzhong plain is hot and punishing.