JIANSHUI lies 80km south of Tonghai, China through some seriously eroded countryside full of short limestone fingers poking out of the soil - a stone forest beginning to sprout. An administrative centre for over a thousand years, first impressions of an ordinary, modernizing Chinese town are dispelled as the huge red Chaoyang Lou , the former eastern gate tower in the city's Ming-dynasty walls, looms into view - one of several historic structures that make Jianshui another good place to roam at leisure. Buses wind up 100m northwest of here on crowded Chaoyang Bei Lu, which arcs around the centre; follow this road for another 500m past the main produce market and two minibus depots to the crossroads with Yongzhen Lu, where you'll find the Lin'an Jiudian (tel 0873/7651888, fax 7654888; ¥75-100) set back on the corner, the only hotel in town willing to take foreigners at present.

Firmly locked and its grounds swarming with loungers, Chaoyang Lou doesn't do much more than mark where Jianzhong Lu runs southwest through the kilometre-broad old city , whose narrow backstreets still follow their original layout past Jianshui's abundant historic buildings - most of which no longer serve their original purpose. To find some that still do, follow Jianzhong Lu for 200m then turn north up Jianxin Jie, and you'll shortly arrive at Zhujia Huayuan , the Zhu Clan Gardens (¥2), a spacious collection of attractive halls, pot plants and a good tea house , recently renovated to splendid condition - the Zhus must have been wealthy indeed. Back on Jianzhong Lu, a further few minutes past more market activity and old shops brings you to the front of a temple - don't go in, it's a military base - followed shortly afterwards by another, grander affair, the entrance to Jianshui's venerable Confucian Academy . The fee here (¥1) allows you to walk around a small lake to Dacheng Men , the complex's actual gates (¥2) behind which is a school and a series of halls with accomplished interlocking wooden eaves and fine carved screen doors, while some elderly stone statues of goats, lions and elephants stand around the grounds - the latter a recurring theme in the academy's decorations. Side-wings have become a museum of old silk paintings and photos of the county's surviving classical architecture.

In food circles, Jianshui's most famous product is the qiguo - a steampot casserole whose inverted funnel design simultaneously poaches meat and creates a soup - though it's hard either to find shops selling souvenir pots, or a restaurant serving the casserole. The town's most atmospheric restaurant is the Lin'an Fandian on Jianzhong Lu, whose lower-floor beam-and-flagstone decor offers cheap soups and stir-fries, with more formal arrangements in the balcony rooms upstairs. Otherwise, you'll fall over swarms of fruit sellers and cheap street kitchens, whose charcoal-grilled, skewered tofu, eggs, meat or veggies with chilli relish are the most popular meal in town. Moving on from Jianshui , the bus station has regular departures to Kunming, Tonghai, Gejiu and Kaiyuan, and daily services to Hekou and Yuanyang.