Lijiang

Lijiang needs 3 days: the Old Town, with canals, stone bridges and wooden houses of the Naxi ethnic group, on one, and an excursion to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, with a cable car climbing to nearly 4,700 meters, on another, leaving the third for Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest river canyons in the world. March-May and September-November bring the mildest weather. It's mid-priced for China. Its Old Town, unwalled and with a canal system that has supplied water to every house for 800 years, preserves the Naxi's Dongba script, the only pictographic hieroglyphic system still in use in the world.