Changsha
Changsha is Hunan's capital and its kitchen: chillies, stinky tofu, crayfish and milk tea, eaten late. By day there is a museum with a 2,100-year-old woman in it and a wooded mountain across the river with a thousand-year-old academy.
- Region
- Hunan, South
- Best months
- Mar–May, Oct–Nov
- Airports
- CSX
- Suggested stay
- 2 days
Overview
Changsha eats and stays up. The old streets around Taiping Street and Pozi Street fill after dark with stalls and queues, and the city's tea shops have become a national obsession. It is young, loud and friendly, and the food is as spicy as its reputation.
The daytime city is quieter than you would expect. The Hunan Museum's Mawangdui galleries hold the tomb of Lady Dai, buried in 168 BC and found in 1972 with her skin still soft, along with silks, lacquer and the earliest maps in the country. Across the river, Yuelu Mountain is a forested park with the Yuelu Academy at its foot, teaching since 976.
The Xiang River divides the city; Orange Isle sits in the middle of it. Summer is hot and wet; the shoulder seasons are pleasant.
Getting there
Changsha South is the high-speed station: Wuhan an hour and a half, Guangzhou two and a half, Guilin about three, Shanghai around five. Metro line 2 runs from it through the centre. Huanghua (CSX) airport is linked to South station by a maglev in 20 minutes.
Rail tip. Your passport is your ticket. Book on 12306 or Trip.com, then go straight to the gate. See Getting around.
Where to stay
Taiping Street and the old town
太平街·老城The lanes by the river where the night market is. Lively, central, walkable.
Between Wuyi Square and the river. Guesthouses in the old lanes and big hotels on the avenues. Everything eats within ten minutes.
Yuelu
岳麓Across the river under the mountain, among the universities. Green and calm.
Hotels and guesthouses around Hunan University and the foot of the mountain. Metro line 2 crosses the river to the centre in a few stops.
Things to do
Hunan Museum
湖南博物院Lady Dai and the Mawangdui tombs: silks, lacquer, a painted banner and the marquise herself. Free, book ahead.
Yuelu Mountain and Academy
岳麓山·岳麓书院A wooded hill with a Song academy, a Buddhist temple and the Aiwan Pavilion among the maples.
Orange Isle
橘子洲A five-kilometre island in the Xiang River with orange groves and the young Mao in granite.
Taiping Street
太平街The old street of the night market. Stinky tofu, crayfish and queues for everything.
Kaifu Temple
开福寺A tenth-century Chan temple by the river, calm and full of local worshippers.
Zhangjiajie
张家界The sandstone pillar forest, three hours west. Not a day trip; give it two nights.
Eat
Stinky tofu, black and fried, with chilli and pickles, from the stalls on Pozi Street. Rice noodles in a pork-bone broth for breakfast, chopped-chilli fish head, spicy crayfish all summer, sugar-oil baba rice fritters, and a Chayan Yuese milk tea for the queue as much as the drink. Hunan cooking is hot, sour and smoky and does not hold back.
From travellers in Changsha
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