Changsha

A low mountain on the Xiang's west bank. Aiwan Pavilion, halfway up, is named from a line the poet Du Mu wrote. Maples ring the pavilion and turn red in late November. Anyone not keen to climb can take the cable car or a shuttle up.

Opened in 976 and counted among the four great academies of the Song. It now sits inside the Hunan University campus, so you pass the university gate and walk among students to reach its door. Zhu Xi came here to lecture in 1167.

A long island mid-stream in the Xiang, a 32-metre sculpted head of the young Mao at its southern tip. Walking the whole length takes a while, so ride the electric carts that loop it. A metro station opens straight onto the middle of the island.

Lacquer and silk from the Han tombs at Mawangdui, and the body of Lady Xin Zhui, skin still supple after more than 2,000 years. Entry needs booking online, and it shuts on Mondays. The queue grows longest outside the room where her body lies.

An old street whose lane pattern lived through the 1938 blaze; the Han writer Jia Yi's house of exile stands on it. Snack shops and teahouses line it now. Crowds peak after dark, when moving forward at all gets hard.

A three-storey tower set on the one stretch left of Changsha's Ming wall. A few minutes of rampart can be walked, and in the park below old men from the neighbourhood play Chinese chess. Reach it on foot heading southeast from Taiping Street.

The teachers' college where Mao studied from 1913 to 1918, its buildings burned in the 1938 blaze and rebuilt in their old form. Still a working school, so you find the memorial rooms between dormitories and classrooms.

Mao's home village, roughly 100 km southwest of Changsha. Tour groups lay flower baskets and bow before the bronze Mao on the square, and on his birthday, 26 December, it fills solid. From Shaoshan South high-speed station a shuttle covers the rest.

A grand theatre and gallery by Zaha Hadid's office, white curves set like petals on the lakeshore. On days with no show the plaza outside and the lake path are still open for walking. It lies in the new town west of the centre; take the metro.

A temple on Changsha's north side, founded under the Chu kingdom of the Five Dynasties era. Courtyards open one behind another past the main hall, quieter the deeper you go. Metro Line 1 has a station named after it.

A pavilion on the Xiang's east bank honouring Du Fu, who drifted around Changsha in his last years. From the top floor Yuelu Mountain and Orange Isle fit in one frame. At nightfall its eaves light up, best seen from the riverside path.

Tongguan, where Tang-era Changsha ware was fired, pairs old kiln sites with a newly built old-style town. The ware was known for pictures and verses under the glaze and sailed as far as West Asia. Workshops let you try the potter's wheel.

An old port where the Wei flows into the Xiang; in Ming and Qing times rice boats crowded in here. Wooden shopfronts line its flagstone lanes. Quieter than the city sights, its alleys are almost empty on a weekday morning.

A downtown shopping street named for Huang Xing, the Changsha native who led the 1911 revolution. His statue stands at the entrance, and the side lane Pozi Street runs into snack stalls. After dark the crowds make it slow going.

A museum for the bamboo and wooden slips of the Wu kingdom, Three Kingdoms era, found in old wells on a city building site. They are tax and household records, and over a hundred thousand surfaced. Magnifiers on the cases show each brushstroke.

A food hall that rebuilds 1980s Changsha lanes indoors. Between rusty signs and worn tenement corridors sit stalls of spicy crayfish and stinky tofu. At mealtimes you may take a queue number and wait, so go off-peak.