Luoyang Departure: Yin Ruins, Chinese Character Museum and Youli City, 3 Days 2 Nights

We leave Luoyang at eight and drive north on the Erguang expressway, reaching Anyang in two and a half hours. Lunch is the local three-smoked platter, smoked chicken and smoked egg and smoked pork cheek, with a bowl of flatbean noodles. In the afternoon we enter the palace and ancestral temple zone of the Yin Ruins: first the oracle bone pits, one of which yielded more than ten thousand pieces; then the chariot pits, where horse skeletons and shafts still hold their original posture; then the tomb of Fu Hao, a modest pit that once held a storeroom of grave goods.

Attraction introduction: The Yin Ruins lie northwest of Anyang with the Huan River curling past the north side, capital of the late Shang for more than two hundred years. In 1899 Wang Yirong recognised oracle bone script on medicinal dragon bones, and excavation has continued for over a century, uncovering palaces, royal tombs and workshops. UNESCO listed the site in 2006.

Tips: Most of the site is open ground, sunny in summer and windy in autumn, so carry a hat and water. Guests generally find the bone pits take ten minutes without a guide and half an hour with one. In practice we hire a local guide and stay with the group throughout.

Morning at the new Yin Ruins Museum on Shachang Road, its form borrowed from a bronze ding. The halls run from bronzes and jades to a reconstructed chariot, and the third floor group of ding vessels deserves a long stop. Lunch back in the city. In the afternoon the Chinese Character Museum: we start with oracle bones in the Xuanwen Hall, then follow bronze inscriptions, seal script, clerical script and regular script down the centuries, and on the second floor there is a movable-type press where you can print a sheet yourself.

Attraction introduction: The new Yin Ruins Museum opened in 2024, built around finds from the site, with bronzes, jades and oracle bones as its three pillars. The Chinese Character Museum opened in 2009 as the world's first national museum devoted to writing: one hall for the origin and descent of Chinese characters, one for scripts of other peoples, one for hands-on work.

Tips: Two museums make a long half day, so we build in a seated rest between them. Guests generally find the interactive zone is where children gather while adults stand longest at the oracle bone wall. In practice we leave before four to avoid the closing rush.

We drive south to Tangyin, half an hour, and arrive at Youli City. Inside the gate a raised platform carries the Temple of King Wen, the statue modest in size and the sixty-four hexagrams carved along the wall. Below it a hedge maze of the eight trigrams takes a good ten minutes to solve, and a wrong turn means backing out. The old cypresses in the yard are thick-trunked, bark split into deep ridges. After lunch the coach returns to Luoyang, arriving in the evening.

Attraction introduction: Youli City north of Tangyin was the state prison of the late Shang. King Wen of Zhou was held here for seven years by the last Shang king and during that time doubled the eight trigrams into sixty-four hexagrams, which is why the site is called the birthplace of the Book of Changes. The buildings are Ming and later rebuilds, but the platform base has never moved.

Tips: The maze has no shade, harsh in summer sun and raw in winter wind. Guests generally find it harder than expected and children more determined than adults. In practice we set a meeting point outside the maze and anyone stuck simply waits rather than forcing a route.