Changsha from the Xianjing River, Changsha

Changsha from the Xianjing River, Changsha

Changsha City is one of China’s lesser-known provincial capitals. Yet there are many reasons to fall in love with it: the world-class Hunan Museum whose treasure trove Mawangdui Tombs offer a near complete picture of aristocratic life in China over two millennia ago, the ancient Confucian Academy set in the woodlands of Yuelu Hill where scholars studied two hundred years before Oxford University was born, the wonderful craft shops and street food stalls on Taiping Street… But the city’s star attraction has to be a nighttime cruise on the Xiangjiang River, with the lights of modern Changsha dancing all around, reflected in the water and mesmerising in their ever-shifting complexity.