Road, rail and river converge 110km west of Guangzhou at ZHAOQING, China, a smart, modern place founded as a Qin garrison town to plug a gap in the line of a low mountain range. The first Europeans settled here as early as the sixteenth century, when the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci used Taoist and Buddhist parallels to make his Christian teachings palatable (having spent six years in Zhaoqing, Ricci was eventually invited to Beijing by emperor Wanli, where he died in 1610 having published numerous religious tracts). Since the tenth century, however, Zhaoqing has been better known for the limestone hills comprising the adjacent Qixing Yan , the Seven Star Crags. Swathed in mists and surrounded by lakes, they lack the scale of Guilin's peaks, but make for a very enjoyable day's wander, as do the surprisingly thick forests at Dinghu Shan , just a short local bus ride away from town.

Directly linked to Hong Kong by a daily ferry , there's quite a bit to see in Zhaoqing itself, though the sights are widely scattered and not of great individual importance. Produced for more than a thousand years, Zhaoqing's inkstones are some of the finest in China, and there's a factory on Gongnong Lu which turns out some wonderfully executed pieces - you can buy them here and at several craft stores at the start of the causway at the Duanzhou Lu-Tianning Lu intersection.

Overlooking the river, Chongxi Ta (8am-5.30pm; ¥2) is a Ming pagoda at the eastern end of riverfront Jiangbin Lu. Looking much like Guangzhou's Liurong Ta, at 57.5m this is the highest pagoda in the province; views from the top take in sampans, cargo boats and red cliffs across the river surmounted by two more pagodas of similar vintage. A few aged buildings lurk in the backstreets west of here behind Jiangbin Lu, including Da Chen Miao on Yuejiang Lu, a dusty, four-hundred-year-old Confucian academy of stone and beam construction, but Zhaoqing's most interesting quarter is a thirty-minute walk away on the far side of Tianning Lu, where Chengzong Lu and Jianshe Wu Lu run west through the site of the original town. There's a tight knot of early twentieth-century lanes, shops and homes here - all typically busy and noisy - and traces of the ancient city walls in the two low ridges running across Chengzong Lu. Past here, the freshly restored Plum Monastery (7am-5.30pm; ¥3), on Mei'an Lu, was established in 996 and has close associations with Hui Neng , founder of Chan Buddhism, who is remembered in various paintings and sculptures here.

Arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper and said to be fallen stars, the seven peaks which make up Qixing Yan Park (8am-5pm; ¥30) rise 2km north of town on the far side of Xin Hu (Mars Lake). To get here, go to the top end of Tianning Lu and cross over busy Duanzhou Lu to the paved area on the lakeshore, from where a causeway continues north across Xin Hu. Towards the opposite shore it forks at the park gates; the crags themselves are quite modestly scaled, named after objects they imaginatively resemble - Chaunchu (Toad), Tianzhu (Heavenly Pillar), Shizang (Stone Hand) - and an interlocking network of arched bridges, pathways, graffiti-embellished caves and willows all make for a pleasantly romantic three-hour stroll. Pedal boats (¥25 per hour) and boat tours (around ¥15 a person) are also available from the Duanzhou Lu side of the lake if you want to enjoy the scenery from the water.