Xi'an travel info

Climb onto the wall at the South Gate around sunset and Xi'an makes sense straight away. Nearly 14 km of grey rampart boxes in the old town, and the Bell Tower lights up gold at the centre. This was Qin Shi Huang's capital, then Tang-dynasty Chang'an, seat of more than ten dynasties and the eastern end of the Silk Road.

A few minutes northwest of the Bell Tower is the Muslim Quarter, where Hui families have traded for generations. By evening, charcoal smoke from lamb skewers fills the lanes and persimmon cakes sizzle on griddles. There's paomo, flatbread you tear into crumbs yourself before it goes into a bowl of mutton broth; biangbiang noodles as wide as a belt; and roujiamo, chopped braised meat stuffed into a crisp bun. This is a wheat city more than a rice city.

The Terracotta Army sits in Lintong, roughly 40 km east, so give it half a day. Spend the rest cycling a lap of the wall and wandering the Great Tang All Day Mall below the Big Wild Goose Pagoda at night, among people in rented Tang-dynasty robes. The metro runs straight from the airport, and fast trains to Beijing and Chengdu leave all day, so Xi'an slots neatly into a longer China trip.

Xi'an Xianyang International Airport (XIY)