Mt Tai

4d · A dedicated Confucian pilgrimage: two days at the Qufu UNESCO complex, a half-day at Mencius's birthplace Zoucheng, and an ascent of Mount Tai to visit its Confucian inscription steles.

5d · The most essential Shandong circuit: Confucius's hometown Qufu, the sacred summit of Mount Tai, and a half-day in Qingdao. Suitable as an add-on from Beijing or Shanghai.

7d · Shandong's coast, sacred mountain and Confucian heartland in one loop: Jinan springs, Confucius's birthplace Qufu, Mount Tai sunrise, and the German-flavoured port city of Qingdao.

Tang-dynasty Buddhist pagoda, built 652 CE to house the sutras brought back by Xuanzang. 64m, seven storeys, climbable.

One of the most important Buddhist monasteries in Chinese history, founded in 386 CE at the foot of Mount Lu and considered the birthplace of Pure Land Buddhism in China.

UNESCO · Once the largest monastery in the world (10,000+ monks). 8 km west of Lhasa. Active Gelugpa monastery; debating courtyard sessions in the afternoon.

1,700-year-old Buddhist temple 110 km west of Xi'an. The 1987 discovery of a finger relic of the Buddha in its underground crypt was a major archaeological event.

The mother monastery of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, founded in 1409 by Tsongkhapa atop Wangbur Mountain 47 km east of Lhasa, offering sweeping plateau views and an important kora trail.

A nine-storey mandala stupa built in 1427 containing 108 chapels on multiple floors, considered one of the finest examples of Tibetan religious architecture and the most important landmark in Gyantse.

1,500-year-old wooden temple complex pinned to the side of a 75m cliff at Mt Heng. Engineered with horizontal posts driven into the rock face.

Active urban Buddhist temple in central Shanghai. Famous for two life-size jade Buddhas brought from Burma in 1882.

UNESCO-listed pair of Ming-Qing Huizhou merchant villages in southern Anhui, renowned for whitewashed walls, inky horsehead gables and moon-shaped ponds.

UNESCO-listed archaeological site in Hangzhou preserving the remains of a 5,000-year-old city with a sophisticated water-management system, jade ritual culture and social hierarchy — regarded as one of the earliest state-level societies in East Asia.

UNESCO Natural World Heritage site in Inner Mongolia — the third largest desert in China, featuring some of the world's tallest stationary dunes and a unique network of freshwater and saline lakes sustained by a still-unexplained subterranean water system.

UNESCO-listed capital cities and royal tombs of the Koguryo Kingdom in Jian, Jilin — the Chinese portion of a transnational heritage property shared with North Korea, representing one of the most powerful states of ancient East Asia.

UNESCO Natural World Heritage site — a serial property of six Danxia landscapes across six provinces, representing China's defining red-cliff-and-pillar sandstone landform type, including Danxia Mountain, Zhangye, Taining and Langshan.

UNESCO-listed collection of private gardens in Suzhou — four inscribed in 1997 and five more added in 2000 — representing the pinnacle of Chinese garden design through the refined integration of architecture, water, rock and plant.

UNESCO-listed Suzhou garden organised symmetrically around a central residence. Less crowded than the four most-visited gardens.

Once the largest monastery in the world (10,000+ monks). 8 km west of Lhasa. Active Gelugpa monastery; debating courtyard sessions in the afternoon.

Blog · What the 4h 28m Beijing-Shanghai G-class is actually like — second-class is fine, the Yangtze crossing is photogenic, the lunch box is mediocre, the right-side window has the Nanjing bridge.