云浮市

Why this place

Yunfu is China's stone-working city — it supplies a huge share of the country's marble and granite products — and it sits in the hills west of the Pearl River delta. It is a working city, not a tourist one, but the stone yards are remarkable in scale.

What to see

• The stone-processing yards and the stone trade exhibition, which is the city's identity
• The Luoding and Xinxing old towns, and the Liuzu (Sixth Patriarch) temples of the hills
• The Tianlu Mountain and the hot springs of the surrounding counties

What to eat

• Cantonese country cooking and river fish
• Yunfu is known for its 'Xinxing' rice noodles and its preserved meats

Best time

October–December and March–April