Quanzhou

Zaytun, as Arab traders called it, sent silk and porcelain out and took in every religion that arrived by sea. UNESCO listed the whole trading system in 2021, and the sites are scattered through a town that has not been tidied up for tourists: incense in the lanes, opera on temple stages, scooters everywhere.

West Street and the Kaiyuan Temple are the centre of it. From there everything is walkable, in red-brick lanes with swallowtail roof ridges. Go out to Xunpu, where the women wear flowers in their hair and the houses are built from oyster shells, and to the Luoyang Bridge, a Song stone causeway across an estuary.

Quanzhou is hot and humid from May to September. Winter is mild and the best time to walk.

Quanzhou station is on the coastal high-speed line, ten kilometres north of the old town: Xiamen North in about half an hour, Fuzhou an hour, Shanghai around five and a half. Jinjiang (JJN) airport is half an hour south with domestic flights; most people fly to Xiamen.

Mianxian hu (rice-vermicelli paste with your choice of toppings) is breakfast; ginger duck and oyster omelette are dinner. Runbing spring rolls, satay noodles, sticky-rice wuxiang rolls and sifang tang iced fruit soup fill the gaps. The stalls around Kaiyuan Temple and along Zhongshan Road are where the town eats.