Taiyuan Travel Guide

Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province, an inland old capital that the Fen River runs through from north to south. It has a long history and flourished in ancient times as a strategic point in the north. A center that keeps traces of its old city walls and new districts spreading along the river overlap within a single city.Jinci Temple is the old sanctuary that represents Taiyuan. It gathers ritual buildings, gardens and sculpture dating from the Northern Wei period, and in the Hall of the Holy Mother, built in the Northern Song, rows of Song-dynasty painted attendant figures stand with differing expressions and costumes. The water of Nanlao Spring still flows without pause, and together with a Zhou-dynasty cypress and a Tang-dynasty pagoda tree it carries a thousand years of time. The Flying Bridge over the Fish Pond is a rare cross-shaped stone bridge, known as the only surviving example of its kind from the same era in China.The two pagodas of Yongzuo Temple, built in the Ming dynasty, have long been loved as the symbol of Taiyuan. The temple is a rare piece of architecture nationwide, assembled entirely from brick. On Tianlong Mountain in the outskirts survive grottoes carved from the Eastern Wei through the Tang, and the Buddhas arranged along the mountain slope carry the sculptural style of the Northern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang down to today. At the Shanxi Museum in the city you can meet masterpieces that tell the history of Shanxi, starting with the bird-shaped zun vessel of the Marquis of Jin from the Western Zhou.Taiyuan's food culture is represented by noodles and vinegar. Dishes are plain and full of strength: daoxiaomian, noodles shaved into boiling water, laochencu vinegar aged for several years, and guoyourou, pork stir-fried with the aroma of vinegar. Linked to Beijing and Xi'an by high-speed rail, it is a city that makes a base for touring Jinci Temple and the old temples at leisure.