The moment you pass through one of Pingyao's six gates, the noise of modern China disappears almost immediately. The city looks like a film set until you realise there are people living in these courtyards, hanging laundry between the eaves. What surprises most visitors is that you can walk this city completely, and nothing feels staged.
Most Pingyao tours begin inside the ancient walls, where the pace drops immediately after you pass through the gates. Ming and Qing Street is the main artery, lined with original shopfronts and old merchant houses. The walk along the Ancient City Walls gives the full picture of the town’s layout, the moat and the fields beyond. From the walls, head down to Rishengchang Draft Bank and its secret vault, founded in 1823 and considered the first of its kind in China. It is the building that made Pingyao a financial centre long before modern banking had a name.
Outside the gates, Shuanglin Temple is the one site that most rewards the detour. Sitting six kilometres from the old city, it holds more than 2,000 painted clay statues with surviving colour from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods.
Pingyao sits directly on the Beijing to Xi’an high-speed rail line, making it an easy and rewarding stop between the two capitals.
10-day Central China Essential Tour (from Beijing)
This trip can truly be called the quintessence of 3,000 years of Chinese history: temples and palaces of ancient dynasties, the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Army, medieval Pingyao, and finally, futuristic Shanghai with the tallest skyscrapers in the Middle Kingdom.
Beijing, Badaling Great Wall, Pingyao, Xi’an, Shanghai
Details10 Days | Private | mid-March to mid-November from US$ 1,992 per person
