Tongling is in Anhui, in East China.
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Anhui · City Guide
Tongling, Copper for Three Thousand Years.
Overview
Why Go
Copper has been mined here since at least the Spring and Autumn period, and the open cut at Jinniudong still shows the worked rock faces and drainage. The city is named for the metal and still smelts it.
The Yangtze finless porpoise is critically endangered and its river relative, the baiji, is considered functionally extinct. Tongling keeps a group in an old river channel where they can be seen surfacing from the bank.
Datong was a Qing customs and salt station with an island suburb of banks and warehouses. The island is now mostly empty houses and broken walls with a few families still on it, which is why it is worth the ferry.
Tongling white ginger is sprouted in heated earth towers over winter, then grown in fields shaded by straw frames so the rhizome stays pale and low in fibre. The system is recognised as agricultural heritage.
The peonies on Fenghuang Mountain are a medicinal variety grown for the root bark rather than the flower. They bloom white across whole hillsides in April, which is a by-product of the crop rather than the point of it.
See
A stretch of old Yangtze channel near Datong holding a small managed group of finless porpoises, with viewing points and feeding times. Mornings are ideal. Ninety minutes, and bring binoculars.
The mainland old street is partly restored; the island across the water is not, and its main street is roofless brick with trees growing through it. Short ferry. Half a day for both sides.
An open-cut copper working from the Spring and Autumn period, excavated to show the faces, shafts and timber shoring, with a small exhibition. Compact and specific. An hour.
A volcanic landform in Zongyang County with crater walls, caves and several hundred cliff inscriptions cut by visiting officials and monks over a thousand years. A full day from the city.
Hillsides of medicinal peony with villages among them, at their peak for about two weeks in April. Outside the bloom it is a quiet farming valley with walking paths. Half a day.
The city museum covers the copper story from ore body to bronze vessel, with mining tools, smelting evidence and local bronzes. It makes the mine site legible. Ninety minutes, and go at the start.
On the Map
Approximate locations of the attractions above, across Tongling.
Eat
Pale, low-fibre ginger eaten as a pickle more often than as a seasoning: sliced and put up in sugar, salt or soy. It is milder and crisper than ordinary ginger and the city sells it in jars everywhere.
Hairy crab from the lake at Zongyang, steamed plain and eaten with ginger vinegar. The season runs from late September to November and the lakeside restaurants sell by weight straight off the boats.
Tofu pressed hard, simmered in soy and spices and smoked until it is dark and firm enough to slice thin. Eaten cold with tea or fried with garlic shoots. The old town has made it for generations.
Layers of sesame, sugar and flour folded and pressed into blocks that shatter when visitors bite them. Made in Shun'an town and sold loose from paper. Very sweet and very dry; buy less than visitors think.
Do
They surface briefly and often at feeding times in the morning. Stay still and watch the same patch of water rather than scanning. It is the closest many people will get to a Yangtze cetacean.
The crossing takes a few minutes and puts visitors in a street of abandoned shophouses with a handful of residents left. Walk the main line of it end to end; there is no route to follow.
The sprouting towers are heated earth buildings kept at a set temperature through the winter, and growers will open one if visitors ask in the season. The shaded field frames go up later in spring.
The cliffs carry several hundred carved texts spanning a thousand years, cut wherever the rock allowed. Following the dates along the face is more interesting than the caves themselves.
When
Peonies on Fenghuang Mountain in April, mild dry weather and the river low. The strongest window of the year.
Hot, humid and the Yangtze flood season, which can close the island crossing. Ginger fields are under their straw frames.
Crab season, ginger harvest and clear cool air. The other good window and the ideal light on the river.
Cold and grey with the ginger towers working. Porpoise viewing carries on and the whole prefecture is empty of visitors.
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Tongling is in Anhui, in East China.
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