Weinan is in Shaanxi, in Northwest China.
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Shaanxi · City Guide
Weinan, Where Mount Hua Rises Above the Tang Tombs.
Overview
Why Go
Mount Hua is the western peak of the Five Great Mountains, a granite massif climbed on stairs cut into the rock and on iron chains. Emperors sacrificed at its temple for two thousand years before anyone climbed it for the view.
Eighteen Tang emperors are buried along the plateau north of the Wei. Qiaoling keeps 47 colossal stone figures down a 625-metre spirit way, and on many days visitors can walk the whole line without meeting anyone.
Hancheng was laid out in 598 and about thirty thousand people live inside it. Jincheng Street runs 720 metres past more than a hundred Ming and Qing shopfronts, many of them trading. Nobody moved out to make room for visitors.
The historian who wrote the Records of the Grand Historian came from Hancheng, and his tomb and temple sit on a bluff above the Yellow River. His book is the model every later Chinese dynastic history followed.
Huayin Laoqiang is performed by shouting an old boatmen's chant while beating a bench with a block of wood. It is on the national intangible heritage list and sounds like nothing else in Chinese traditional music.
See
Five peaks around a granite core, a high at 2,155 metres. Cable cars run to the north and west peaks; the stair routes take much of a day. The plank walk on the south face is a boarded ledge bolted to the cliff, walked in a full harness clipped to a fixed line.
A Sui foundation of 598 with the street plan intact and residents still in the courtyards. Around a hundred traditional compounds survive behind the shopfronts. The Confucian temple at the north end is one of the larger surviving in the country.
Founded in 1331 by two merchant families, with 123 intact courtyard houses, eleven ancestral halls and 25 watchtowers built from the trade with the Yellow River ports. Three hundred people still live in it.
Qiaoling holds Emperor Ruizong, Tailing his son Xuanzong, an hour apart. Ruizong's stone figures are on a grand scale for a Tang tomb; Xuanzong's, carved after the An Lushan revolt emptied the treasury, are visibly smaller. The two read as one story.
A temple and grave on a bluff reached by a steep paved ramp, looking out over the Yellow River and the old Longmen ferry. Sima Qian was castrated rather than allowed to die for defending a disgraced general, and finished the history afterwards.
The eastern gate of the Guanzhong basin, held and lost in many dynastic conflicts. The town was moved in 1960 for the Sanmenxia reservoir and just wall fragments are left. When Tongguan fell in 756, Chang'an fell with it.
On the Map
Approximate locations of the attractions above, across Weinan.
Eat
Braised pork in a flatbread, but the Tongguan bread is laminated and baked crisp rather than the soft Xi'an version, and the meat goes in hot. Locals argue that the two are different dishes rather than variants.
Buckwheat noodles pressed through a perforated press straight into the pot, served in clear mutton broth with chilli oil. Breakfast in Hancheng, and the presses are still the wooden lever kind in the older shops.
Mutton simmered in clear water with little more than salt, eaten with a sesame flatbread torn into the bowl by the diner. It is the summer counterpart to Xi'an's thicker paomo, and Chengcheng claims the older version.
Persimmons peeled, hung on racks through the winter and turned until the sugar crystallises white on the outside. Fuping carries a geographical indication for them, and the racks go up across the county in November.
Do
The east peak is the sunrise point. People either climb through the night or take the late cable car and sleep at a peak guesthouse. Rented padded coats are sold at the top and visitors will want one in any season.
The fixed theatre at Taihua runs paid shows, and village troupes around Huayin perform at temple fairs. It is closer to shouting than to singing, with the rhythm kept by hitting a bench, and it carries without amplification.
Qiaoling's line of stone lions, winged horses, ostriches and officials runs 625 metres across open ground with no entry gate crowd and no barrier. Go in the late afternoon, when the light comes in sideways along the row.
Hancheng's main street starts trading around six with hele noodles and fried dough. Walk it before the shops that sell to visitors open, then go out to Dangjia Village, twenty minutes away, for the courtyards.
When
Wheat green on the plain, clear air on the mountain and the Tang tombs at their peak. Mount Hua is busy at weekends but not yet at summer levels.
Hot on the plain and crowded on Mount Hua, especially in the overnight climbing season. Shuipan mutton soup is what people eat instead of a hot meal.
The other good window: persimmons colouring in Fuping, harvest across the Guanzhong plain, and cool nights for the climb. Avoid the October holiday week.
Cold and dry, with snow possible on Mount Hua and some routes closed. The persimmon racks go up in November and the old cities are empty of visitors.
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Weinan is in Shaanxi, in Northwest China.
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