青铜器

Why this place

Chinese Bronze Age ritual vessels are among the great technical achievements of the ancient world: cast in piece-moulds rather than by lost wax, with complex decorative schemes, and often inscribed with texts that are primary historical documents. They were made for sacrifice and for the ancestral cult, and their shapes and decoration changed in step with politics.

What to see

• The Shanghai Museum's bronze gallery, the finest collection in the world
• The National Museum in Beijing, and the Henan Museum in Zhengzhou
• Baoji's bronze museum in Shaanxi, with the Western Zhou inscriptions
• Sanxingdui in Sichuan, for the bronze masks of a culture with no written record
• Hubei Museum in Wuhan, for the tomb of Marquis Yi and the bronze bells

What to eat

• Not edible — but the same cities have some of the best regional cooking
• Zhengzhou's hui mian and Wuhan's hot dry noodles, after the museums

How to plan

Two museum visits would cover the tradition: Shanghai, plus one of Zhengzhou, Baoji or Wuhan.

Best time

Any time; museums are the visit

Practical tips

• Look for the inscriptions — a vessel's value to historians is usually in its text, not its decoration