Guilin, Scenes Straight from a Storybook

For many visitors to China, it is the bustling cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, together with man-made treasures like the Great Wall and the famous terra-cotta warriors at Xian, that are the main draw.

Release time : 2017-11-29 10:09:09

source : http://travelweekly-china.com

For many visitors to China, it is the bustling cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, together with man-made treasures like the Great Wall and the famous terra-cotta warriors at Xian, that are the main draw.

But China is also endowed with a wonderful and incredibly varied natural landscape, including the mighty Yangtze and Yellow rivers, rugged mountainous regions and the remote spaces along the Silk Road. One of the most unusual places in China is the remarkable karst formations found in a large area around the southern city of Guilin.

Located in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to the west of Guangzhou, nature has endowed the area with a landscape that belongs in fairy tales. Typical of a karst landform, the limestone formations rise up to about 300 feet like statuesque domes and towers. There are so many of them spread out over a huge area that in total they give the impression of a huge forest. The formations are riddled with caves, some of which can be explored and feature cave paintings dating back hundreds of years. The closest cave to Guilin is Reed Flute Cave.

The Li River and a number of tributaries wind through the region, and it is from small cruise vessels on the river that the best impression is obtained. The weather is often rainy or misty, which adds an ethereal and haunting charm to the scenery that has been the inspiration for centuries of Chinese landscape painters and more recently photographers.

Guilin is a bustling, modern city along the banks of the Li River and a good base for exploring the region, which is basically rural with only a few midsize cities and relatively little industrialization. As in many Chinese cities, traffic is dominated by a huge number of mopeds; bicycles have virtually disappeared. Shops and cafes are always busy, but there is still the odd space for small vegetable plots being carefully tended by older women carrying water in buckets on the end of poles.

Elephant Hill Park is the major attraction in