Jiangxi

Jiangxi is one of China's greenest provinces and for a long time lay off the main tourist routes. Yet a trip to Jiangxi takes you to the porcelain capital of the world, up mist-shrouded mountains and through villages surrounded by yellow rapeseed fields in spring.

Sights in Jiangxi

Jingdezhen has been making porcelain for more than a thousand years, and the blue-and-white tableware from its imperial workshops made its way along the Silk Road all the way to Europe's royal courts. Today, the Museum of the Imperial Kiln, the reconstructed wood-fired kilns of the Ming and Qing eras, and the Taoxichuan district, a converted factory complex full of studios, show how alive the craft remains. Near Jiujiang rises Lushan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with waterfalls, pine trees, and summer villas once built by missionaries and politicians such as Chiang Kai-shek. In the northeast, Wuyuan enchants with its Huizhou-style villages, and Sanqing Shan, a Daoist granite mountain, offers hiking trails along steep rock faces. To the south lies Longhu Shan, with red Danxia rock formations and hanging coffins set into the cliffs. In Jingdezhen, you can sit down at a potter's wheel in a workshop yourself or paint porcelain.

Nanchang, Poyang Lake, and History

Nanchang, the capital, is known for the Tengwang Pavilion on the Gan River, one of the three famous towers of southern China. On August 1, 1927, the uprising broke out here that is regarded as the founding date of the People's Liberation Army; shortly afterward, Mao set up his first base in the mountains of Jinggangshan. Poyang Lake is China's largest freshwater lake and, in winter, a resting place for thousands of cranes, including nearly the entire world population of the Siberian crane. Today, Jinggangshan is a mountain park with waterfalls, bamboo forests, and museums on revolutionary history, while Jiujiang on the Yangtze is the starting point for Lushan and Poyang Lake.

Food, Getting There, and Best Time to Visit

Gan cuisine is hearty and spicy: Nanchang rice noodles with chili, clay-pot soups that simmer for hours, and smoked fish from Poyang Lake. Nanchang is linked by high-speed train to Shanghai, Changsha, and Fuzhou, and Jingdezhen and Wuyuan also have rail service. The best time to visit is spring, when the rapeseed blooms in Wuyuan, as well as fall; for bird-watching at Poyang Lake, December and January are recommended. Lushan is popular in summer as a retreat from the heat and is then quite busy.