Luoyang Departure: Qingming Riverside Garden, Kaifeng Prefecture and Daxiangguo Temple, 4 Days 3 Nights

We leave Luoyang at nine and reach Kaifeng in about two hours on the expressway. After lunch we walk into Daxiangguo Temple, its gate on Ziyou Road facing a street of shops and scooters, and one turn inside drops the temperature. The smell of old timber mixes with incense ash. In the Octagonal Hall you have to look up: the thousand-handed Guanyin stands four-sided, every hand in a different gesture. In the evening we go to the Drum Tower night market, where soup dumplings are bitten open while hot so the broth goes first, and cold jelly sizzles on a flat iron.

Attraction introduction: Daxiangguo Temple was founded in the Northern Qi dynasty and became an imperial temple under the Northern Song, when it was among the largest in the country and housed more than a thousand monks at its height. The present axis was rebuilt in the Qing. The temple sits in the middle of the old city, ringed by the busiest shopping streets.

Tips: No vests or shorts inside, hats off in the halls, and no flash at the statues. Guests generally find the compound far quieter than the street it opens onto, and twenty minutes is enough to feel the change. In practice we schedule only this one stop on day one and leave the evening free.

We enter at half past eight. From the welcome gate the first performance is the magistrate receiving guests, then we follow the Bian River, where the Rainbow Bridge gives the best view of the water street. Morning brings folk shows and cockfighting; lunch is inside the park on Song Street, soup dumplings and almond tea and sweet-and-sour carp. The afternoon is for the chrysanthemum displays, eight halls in Dantai Palace each with its own character, and outdoors drifts of flowers running down to the water. Near dusk we find a seat and wait; when the lights come on, lanterns and flowers merge.

Attraction introduction: The garden opened in 1998 as a reconstruction of Zhang Zeduan's scroll painting Along the River During Qingming, six hundred mu in extent, with the Bian River running through it and inns, wine houses, wharves and the Rainbow Bridge along both banks. Staff wear Song costume and dozens of performances run daily. The chrysanthemum show is staged each autumn, indoors and out at the same time.

Tips: The park is large and fifteen thousand steps a day is normal, so bring soft shoes. Guests generally find the crowd halves once the lanterns are lit, which makes it the best hour for photographs. In practice we treat the ticket as a three-day pass and come back in the evening if anyone wants more.

We reach the old prefecture at half past eight for the nine o'clock opening ceremony: the drum sounds, runners emerge from both sides of the gate shouting the court call, and visitors crowd in a ring. Afterwards we walk the main hall, with the six administrative offices flanking it and desks laid out in order. The Plum Blossom Hall holds the statue of Bao Zheng, and the stele corridor carries inscriptions from successive centuries. In the afternoon we climb the city wall at Daliang Gate; the top is seven or eight metres wide, good for walking or cycling, and the whole roofscape of the old town lies below.

Attraction introduction: The prefecture was the seat of the Northern Song capital administration, and Bao Zheng served as its magistrate for a single year from 1056; brief as it was, the reputation for judgment outlived him. The present complex was rebuilt near the original site in 2003 on the Song pattern, gate and main hall and Plum Blossom Hall in line. The city wall was rebuilt in the Qing on Ming foundations and runs more than fourteen kilometres around.

Tips: The ceremony runs twice, at nine and at two, and early beats late if you want the front row. Guests generally find the wall more rewarding than the streets because the layers of rooftops reveal themselves from above. In practice forty minutes on the wall is enough and nobody is asked to complete the circuit.

No hotel breakfast today. We walk to the morning stalls near Shudian Street and eat what locals eat: pepper-thick soup with fried dough sticks, or mutton broth with flatbread soaked in it. Afterwards there is time to re-enter the garden and finish the halls left over from yesterday. Lunch is near the Drum Tower, then the coach heads back and we are in Luoyang by about four.

Attraction introduction: Breakfast is the most serious meal of the day in Kaifeng. The pepper soup here is lighter on pepper and thicker in body than the version further east, and it is eaten by dipping rather than spooning. Shudian Street is a late Qing lane of grey brick shopfronts, now half bookshops and half food stalls. The Yellow River buried this city several times, so the old town is small and every step is over an older one.

Tips: Most stalls still prefer cash and a dead phone is a nuisance, so charge it before leaving the hotel. Guests generally find the street stalls better than the restaurants, but pick the busy ones where ingredients turn over fast. In practice we keep the departure after lunch so the drive is unhurried.