Hukou Falls, Qiankun Bend and Yan'an in Five Days from Luoyang

A morning start from Luoyang Longmen, one change at Xi'an North or Zhengzhou East, and Linfen West around midday. A road west from the station begins to climb past Xiangning, loess tableland on both sides cut into deep gullies. Jixian by evening, bags down, then out for a bowl of beef meatball noodles.

Attraction introduction: Linfen West is the high-speed gateway to southern Shanxi on the Datong-Xi'an line, and almost every route from Luoyang changes once to reach it. Jixian sits at the southern end of the Luliang range; the county town is small, one main street walkable end to end in twenty minutes, and it is the last comfortable place to sleep before the falls, still some forty kilometres out. At just over a thousand metres the nights run five or six degrees colder than Luoyang, with wind coming straight off the tableland.

Tips: Guests generally find the first day feels wasted, spent entirely in transit. In practice the road is the introduction to the landscape, the view shifting from plain to tableland to gully, which sets up everything in the two days that follow. Skip the drinks tonight; tomorrow starts early to get inside before the coaches arrive.

Through the gate at eight and along the viewing gallery to the face of the main fall, spray reaching you within minutes until your jacket is damp. Then down into the Dragon Cave, a narrow steep stair dropping twenty-odd metres with the lip of the fall directly overhead. Out of the park by noon for lunch in Jixian, then north towards Yanchuan.

Attraction introduction: Hukou lies between Jixian in Shanxi and Yichuan in Shaanxi, where the Yellow River narrows from roughly 300 metres to about 30 and the whole channel drops into a rock trench, hence the name, the mouth of a pot. The Shanxi bank gives a head-on, close view with the roar drowning out speech. The Dragon Cave is part natural hollow, part cut passage, leading to a rock platform at the foot of the fall where you look straight up into the falling sheet, an angle the other bank cannot offer. Both walls of the trench are polished by water, with old high-water marks still legible.

Tips: Guests generally find the cave stairs harder than expected, wet and crowded, easy going down and breathless coming up. In practice we go early while it is quiet, insist on grippy soles, and bag the camera against spray; when the mist is heavy the gallery floor pools with water, so keep to the outer line.

North out of Jixian along the Yellow River road, cliff on one side and water on the other, narrow and winding with the view never letting up. Lunch in Yanchuan county town, then out to Qiankun Bay and the shuttle up to the overlook.

Attraction introduction: Qiankun Bay sits in Yanchuan county and is the tidiest of the five great meanders the Yellow River carves through the loess plateau, the channel turning almost 180 degrees around a round bread-loaf hill the locals call Mother Peak. The bed is incised more than a hundred metres below the rim, so from the platform the river reads as a single ochre ribbon with terraced loess cliffs stacked on both sides. This is part of the Yellow River Meander National Geopark, which also holds Qingshui Bay and Huifeng Fort.

Tips: Guests generally find Qiankun Bay more startling than the photographs, and just as often disappointed by weather, since a grey day flattens the river into one tone. In practice we time it after three in the afternoon when the sun drops and the contrast returns; if fog closes in, we switch to Qingshui Bay, where the angle opens up more.

South from Yanchuan in the morning, into the city in a little over two hours. Yangjialing first in the afternoon, then Zaoyuan, both preserved compounds with rows of earth-yellow cave dwellings set into the slope. In the evening a walk below the pagoda hill as the lights come on and the tower turns warm yellow.

Attraction introduction: Yangjialing was the seat of the Communist headquarters in the 1930s and 1940s; the central auditorium and office block still stand, and the caves are cut into the hillside with arched roofs of rammed earth, shallow inside but warm in winter and cool in summer. Zaoyuan began as a local landlord's estate and later housed the same headquarters; the date trees and stone caves survive largely intact, with the stone table and stools in the yard original to the period. The pagoda on Baota Hill is Tang in form, nine storeys and octagonal, the emblem of the city.

Tips: Guests generally find the sites blur together if you dash through four or five in an afternoon and remember none of them. In practice we keep only Yangjialing and Zaoyuan, forty minutes at each, listening to the guide rather than photographing plaques; paths are earth and steps, so flat shoes help.

No early start. A walk at the foot of Baota Hill, or a stand on the Yan River bridge looking back at the city. Checkout at half past ten, a lunch of potato and buckwheat in town, then the afternoon train via Xi'an North back to Luoyang.

Attraction introduction: The Yan River runs along the east side of the city, dividing Yan'an in two, with Baota Hill on the east bank and Phoenix Hill on the west, the town squeezed into the valley between two ridges. The pagoda follows Tang proportions, nine octagonal storeys in brick, with an internal stair to the middle level and a view over the whole district from its base. The Yan River bridge dates from the 1950s and still carries carved stone balustrades at either end.

Tips: Guests generally find the last morning awkward, too little time for another site and too much for sitting in a lobby. In practice we leave it free: climb the pagoda if you want, or sit by the river, no herding. Be back by half past ten regardless, since trains from Yan'an to Xi'an North are not frequent and a missed one costs two hours.