Pingyao, the walled city of bankers

Almost nothing survives of Ming and Qing urban China at full scale, which is why Pingyao feels like a trick. Six kilometres of rammed-earth and brick wall, raised in 1370 and studded with seventy-two watchtowers, still enclose a complete grid of grey-brick courtyard houses, temples and shopfronts. You can walk the whole circuit of the ramparts in two hours, looking down on tiled roofs, drying chillies and the occasional donkey cart, then descend into Ming-Qing Street where the lanterns come on at dusk.

This small Shanxi town was once the financial capital of the empire. In 1823, a dye merchant converted his shop into Rishengchang, China's first piaohao or draft bank, issuing remittance notes that let silver travel between provinces on paper instead of in carts; at its peak the Shanxi banks ran branches from Kalgan to Kolkata. The original counting rooms, strongboxes and coded ledgers are open to visitors, along with the county yamen, one of the best-preserved county government offices in China, where mock trials are staged in the courtroom.

Just outside the walls, Shuanglin Temple holds more than two thousand painted clay sculptures from the Song to the Ming, including a Guanyin seated in a startlingly relaxed pose, and Zhenguo Temple keeps a timber hall from 963. Half an hour away, the Qiao Family Compound supplied the setting for Raise the Red Lantern. Eat Pingyao braised beef, hand-shaved daoxiao noodles and everything doused in aged Shanxi vinegar, then look for a piece of the town's tuiguang lacquerware, built up in dozens of layers and polished by hand until it holds a reflection. Two nights here reset the pace of any journey through China.